
Class J] 



Book , 



Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN 



'*&&& 



THE FLOWER OF OLD 
JAPAN 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 

ALFRED NOYES 



N*fo gat* 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1907 

All rights reserved 



UtfHARY of CONGRESS J 
i Two CoDles Recelvod 

JUN 17 t«or 

— Copyneht Entty 
DtASS l*» XXC, No, 

copy b._ _ J 



tf*7 



COPYRIGHT, 190T, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1907. 



J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



' O ciel ! toute la Chine est par terre en morceaux ! 

Ce vase pale et doux comme un reflet des eaux, 

Couvert d'oiseaux, de fleurs, de fruits, et des mensonges 

De ce vague ideal qui sort du bleu des songes, 

Ce vase unique, etrange, impossible, engourdi, 

Gardant sur lui le clair de lune en plein midi, 

Qui paraissait vivant, ou luisait une flamme, 

Qui semblait presque un monstre et semblait presque 

une ame. 1 

— Victor Hugo {Le Pot Casse'). 



5o 

ft yttle /I\aidei? 
of /I\iyaKo 



PREFACE 

It is a perilous adventure — the writing of 
a preface, however brief, to one's own poems. 
For one may be tempted to re-state matters 
that could find their full elucidation only 
in the verses themselves. Tennyson once re- 
marked that poetry is like shot silk, glancing 
with many colours ; and any attempt to define 
its meanings is as great a mistake as the attempt 
of nineteenth-century materialism to enclose 
the infinite universe in its logical nut-shells. 
Through poetry alone, whether of deeds or 
words, thought or colour, passion or marble, 
is it possible to approach the Infinite, or as 
Blake did : — 

1 To see a world in a grain of sand, 

A heaven in a wild flower ; 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, 
And Eternity in an hour.' 

But this revelation is the sole end and object 

of all true art ; and I hope it may not be 
ix 



X PBEFACE 

thought presumptuous to say here simply that 
— whether the attempt be a success or a fail- 
ure — it was especially my own aim in the two 
following poems. If the feet of childhood are 
set dancing in them, it was because as children 
we are best able to enter into that Kingdom 
of Dreams which is also the only true, the 
only real, Kingdom. The first tale, for instance, 
must not be taken to have any real relation to 
Japan. It belongs — as the Spectator put it — 
to the kind of dreamland which an imaginative 
child might construct out of the oddities of a 
willow-pattern plate, and it differs chiefly from 
Wonderlands of the Lewis Carrol type in a 
certain seriousness behind its fantasy. It is 
astonishing to me that these things require 
comment; but undoubtedly they do. For, on 
the one hand, the first tale has been praised 
enthusiastically as a vivid picture of Japan, 
and the author has not only had to correspond 
with Tokyo on the subject, but was also invited 
to meetings of the Japan Society in London! 
On the other hand, because the child-voices 
are allowed to declare that Tusitala lies asleep 
in that distant country of dreams, a prosaic 
English critic once wrote a lengthy review in 



PREFACE XI 

an important paper to point out my gross igno- 
rance of the fact that Stevenson was really 
buried in Samoa ! The tales are ' such stuff 
as dreams are made on ' ; but — as a kinder 
critic has remarked — 'we ourselves are made 
of that stuff.' It is perhaps because these 
poems are almost light enough for a non- 
sense-book that I feel there is something in 
them more elemental, more essential, more 
worthy of serious consideration, than the 
most ponderous philosophical poem I could 
write. They are based on the fundamental 
and very simple mystery of the universe — that 
anything, even a grain of sand, should exist 
at all. If we could understand that, we 
could understand everything! Set clear of 
all irrelevancies, that is the simple problem 
that has been puzzling all the ages ; and it 
is well sometimes to forget our accumu- 
lated 'knowledge' and return to it in all its 
childish naivete. It is well to face that incon- 
ceivable miracle, that fundamental impossibility 
which happens to have been possible, that con- 
tradiction in terms, that fundamental paradox, 
for which we have at best only a cruciform 
symbol, with its arms pointing in opposite 



Xll PBEFACE 

directions and postulating, at once, an infinite 
God. 

The inscription on the "Wisdom Looking- 
Glass " ; the discovery by the children that the 
self -limitation of their little wishes was neces- 
sary not only to their own happiness, but to 
the harmony of the whole world ; the develop- 
ment of the same idea in the passages leading 
up to the song — What does it take to make a 
rose f — where a divine act of loving self-limita- 
tion, an eternal self-sacrifice, an everlasting 
passion of the Godhead, such as perhaps was 
shadowed forth on Calvary, is found to be at 
the heart of the Universe, and to be — as it 
were — the highest aspect of the Paradox afore- 
said, the living secret and price of our very 
existence; these things are only one twisted 
strand of the i shot silk ' out of which the two 
tales are woven. It is no new wisdom to 
regard these things through the eyes of little 
children; and I know — however insignificant 
they may be to others — these two tales contain 
as deep and true things as I, personally, have 
the power to express. I hope, therefore, that 
I may be pardoned, in these hurried days, for 
pointing out that the two poems are not to be 



PREFACE xm 

taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt 
to follow the careless and happy feet of child- 
hood back into the kingdom of those dreams 
which, as we said above, are the sole reality 
worth living and dying for; those beautiful 
dreams, or those fantastic jests — if any care 
to call them so — for which mankind has en- 
dured so many triumphant martyrdoms that 
even amidst the rush and roar of modern mate- 
rialism they cannot be quite forgotten. 

ALFRED NOYES. 



PERSONS OF THE TALE 

Ourselves. 

The Tall Thin Man. 

The Dwarf behind the Twisted Pear-tree. 

Creeping Sin. 

The Mad Moonshee. 

The Nameless One. 



Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, 
Merchants, Ghastroi, Weirdrians, etc. 



xiv 



PRELUDE 

You that have known the wonder zone 

Of islands far away; 
You that have heard the dinky bird 

And roamed in rich Cathay ; 
You that have sailed o'er unknown seas 
To woods of Amfalula trees 

Where craggy dragons play : 
Oh, girl or woman, boy or man, 
You've plucked the Flower of Old Japan! 

Do you remember the blue stream ; 

The bridge of pale bamboo; 
The path that seemed a twisted dream 

Where everything came true; 

The purple cherry-trees ; the house 

xv 



xvi PRELUDE 

With jutting eaves below the boughs 

The mandarins in blue, 
With tiny, tapping, tilted toes, 
And curious curved mustachios? 

The road to Old Japan! you cry, 

And is it far or near ? 
Some never find it till they die; 

Some find it everywhere ; 
The road where restful Time forgets 
His weary thoughts and wild regrets 

And calls the golden year 
Back in a fairy dream to smile 
On young and old a little while. 

Some seek it with a blazing sword, 
And some with old blue plates; 

Some with a miser's golden hoard ; 
Some with a book of dates ; 

Some with a box of paints; a few 



PBELUBE xvii 

Whose loads of truth would ne'er pass through 

The first, white, fairy gates; 
And, oh, how shocked they are to find 
That truths are false when left behind! 

Do you remember all the tales 

That Tusitala told, 
When first we plunged thro' purple vales 

In quest of buried gold? 
Do you remember how he said 
That if we fell and hurt our head 

Our hearts must still be bold, 
And we must never mind the pain 
But rise up and go on again? 

Do you remember ? yes ; I know 

You must remember still: 
He left us, not so long ago, 

Carolling with a will, 
Because he knew that he should lie 



xviii PRELUDE 

Under the comfortable sky 

Upon a lonely hill, 
In Old Japan, when day was done ; 
"Dear Robert Louis Stevenson." 

And there he knew that he should find 

The hills that haunt us now; 
The whaups that cried upon the wind 

His heart remembered how ; 
And friends he loved and left, to roam 
Far from the pleasant hearth of home, 

Should touch his dreaming brow; 
Where fishes fly and birds have fins, 
And children teach the mandarins. 

Ah, let us follow, follow far 

Beyond the purple seas; 
Beyond the rosy foaming bar, 

The coral reef, the trees, 
The land of parrots, and the wild 



PRELUDE xix 

That rolls before the fearless child 

Its ancient mysteries : 
Onward and onward, if we can, 
To Old Japan — to Old Japan. 



PART I 

EMBARKATION 

When the firelight, red and clear, 

Flutters in the black wet pane, 
It is very good to hear 

Howling winds and trotting rain: 
It is very good indeed, 

When the nights are dark and cold, 
Near the friendly hearth to read 

Tales of ghosts and buried gold. 

So with cosy toes and hands 
We were dreaming, just like you; 

Till we thought of palmy lands 
Coloured like a cockatoo; 

All in drowsy nursery nooks 
Near the clutching fire we sat, 



2 EMBARKATION 

Searching quaint old story-books 
Piled upon the furry mat. 

Something haunted us that night 

Like a half -remembered name; 
Worn old pages in that light 

Seemed the same, yet not the same 
Curling in the pleasant heat 

Smoothly as a shell-shaped fan, 
0! they breathed and smelt so sweet 

When we turned to Old Japan ! 

Suddenly we thought we heard 

Someone tapping on the wall, 
Tapping, tapping like a bird, 

Till a panel seemed to fall 
Quietly; and a tall thin man 

Stepped into the glimmering room, 
And he held a little fan, 

And he waved it in the gloom. 



EMBARKATION 

Curious reds, and golds, and greens 

Danced before our startled eyes, 
Birds from painted Indian screens, 

Beads, and shells, and dragon-flies; 
Wings, and flowers, and scent, and flame, 

Fans and fish and heliotrope; 
Till the magic air became 

Like a dream kaleidoscope. 

Then he told us of a land 

Far across a fairy sea; 
And he waved his thin white hand 

Like a flower, melodiously; 
While a red and blue macaw 

Perched upon his pointed head, 
And as in a dream, we saw 

All the curious things he said. 

Tucked in tiny palanquins, 
Magically swinging there, 



4 EMBARKATION 

Flowery-kirtled mandarins 
Floated through the scented air; 

Wandering clogs and prowling cats 
Grinned at fish in painted lakes; 

Cross-legged conjurers on mats 
Fluted low to listening snakes. 

Fat black bonzes on the shore 

Watched where singing, faint and far, 
Boys in long blue garments bore 

Roses in a golden jar. 
While at carven dragon ships 

Floating o'er that silent sea, 
Squat-limbed gods with dreadful lips 

Leered and smiled mysteriously. 

Like an idol, shrined alone, 
Watched by secret oval eyes, 

Where the ruby wishing-stone 
Smouldering in the darkness lies, 



EMBARKATION 

Anyone that wanted things 

Touched the jewel and they came: 
We were wealthier than kings 

If we could but do the same. 

Yes; we knew a hundred ways 

We might use it if we could; 
To be happy all our days 

As an Indian in a wood; 
No more daily lesson task, 

No more sorrow, no more care; 
So we thought that we would ask 

If he'd kindly lead us there. 

Ah ! but then he waved his fan, 
And he vanished through the wall; 

Yet as in a dream, we ran 
Tumbling after, one and all; 

Never pausing once to think, 
Panting after him we sped; 



6 EMBABKATION 

For we saw his robe of pink 
Floating backward as he fled. 

Down a secret passage deep, 

Under roofs of spidery stairs, 
Where the bat-winged nightmares creep, 

And a sheeted phantom glares 
Rushed we; ah! how strange it was 

Where no human watcher stood; 
Till we reached a gate of glass 

Opening on a flowery wood. 

Where the rose-pink robe had flown, 

Borne by swifter feet than ours, 
On to Wonder- Wander town, 

Through the wood of monstrous flowers; 
Mailed in monstrous gold and blue 

Dragon-flies like peacocks fled; 
Butterflies like carpets, too, 

Softly fluttered overhead. 



EMBARKATION 

Down the valley, tip-a-toe, 

Where the broad-limbed giants lie 
Snoring, as when long ago 

Jack on a bean-stalk scaled the sky; 
Slowly, softly towards the town 

Stole we past old dreams again, 
Castles long since battered down, 

Dungeons of forgotten pain. 

Noonday brooded on the wood, 

Evening caught us ere we crept 
Where a twisted pear-tree stood, 

And a dwarf behind it slept; 
Round his scraggy throat he wore, 

Knotted tight, a scarlet scarf; 
Timidly we watched him snore, 

For he seemed a surly dwarf. 

Yet, he looked so very small, 
He could hardly hurt us much; 



8 EMBARKATION 

We were nearly twice as tall, 
So we woke him with a touch 

Gently, and in tones polite, 
Asked him to direct our path; 

! his wrinkled eyes grew bright 
Green with ugly gnomish wrath. 

He seemed to choke, 

And gruffly spoke, 
"You're lost: deny it, if you can! 

You want to know 

The way to go? 
There's no such place as Old Japan. 

" You want to seek — 

No, no, don't speak! 
You mean you want to steal a fan. 

You want to see 

The fields of tea? 
They don't grow tea in Old Japan. 



EMBARKATION 

"In China, well 

Perhaps you'd smell 
The cherry bloom: that's if you ran 

A million miles 

And jumped the stiles, 
And never dreamed of Old Japan. 

"What, palanquins, 

And mandarins? 
And, what d'you say, a blue divan? 

And what ? Hee ! hee ! 

You'll never see 
A pig- tailed head in Old Japan. 

"You'd take away 

The ruby, hey? 
I never heard of such a plan ! 

Upon my word 

It's quite absurd 
There's not a gem in Old Japan ! 



10 EMBARKATION 

"Oh, dear me, no! 

You'd better go 
Straight home again, my little man 

Ah, well, you'll see 

But don't blame me; 
I don't believe in Old Japan." 

Then, before we could obey, 

O'er our startled heads he cast, 
Spider-like, a webby grey 

Net that held us prisoned fast; 
How we screamed, he only grinned, 

It was such a lonely place; 
And he said we should be pinned 

In his human beetle-case. 

Out he dragged a monstrous box 
From a cave behind the tree ! 

It had four-and-twenty locks, 
But he could not find the key, 



EMBARKATION 11 

And his face grew very pale 

When a sudden voice began 
Drawing nearer through the vale, 

Singing songs of Old Japan. 

Song 

Satin sails in a crimson dawn 

Over the silky silver sea; 
Purple veils of the dark withdrawn; 

Heavens of pearl and porphyry ; 
Purple and white in the morning light 

Over the water the town we knew, 
In tiny state, like a willow-plate, 

Shone, and behind it the hills were blue. 

There, we remembered, the shadows pass 
All day long like dreams in the night; 

There, in the meadows of dim blue grass, 
Crimson daisies are ringed with white; 



12 EMBARKATION 

There the roses flutter their petals, 
Over the meadows they take their flight, 

There the moth that sleepily settles 
Turns to a flower in the warm soft light. 

There when the sunset colours the streets 

Everyone buys at wonderful stalls 
Toys and chocolates, guns and sweets, 

Ivory pistols, and Persian shawls: 
Everyone 1 s pockets are crammed with gold; 

Nobody's heart is worn with care, 
Nobody ever grows tired and old, 

And nobody calls you "Baby" there. 

There with a hat like a round white dish 
Upside down on each pig-tailed head, 

Jugglers offer you snakes and fish, 
Dreams and dragons and gingerbread; 

Beautiful books with marvellous pictures, 
Painted pirates and streaming gore, 



EMBARKATION 13 

And everyone reads, without any strictures. 
Tales he remembers for evermore. 

There when the dim blue daylight lingers 

Listening, and the West grows holy, 
Singers crouch with their long white fingers 

Floating over the zithern slowly: 
Paper lamps with a peachy bloom 

Burn above on the dim blue bough. 
While the zitherns gild the gloom 

With curious music! I hear it now! 

Now: and at that mighty word 

Holding out his magic fan, 
Through the waving flowers appeared, 

Suddenly, the tall thin man : 
And we saw the crumpled dwarf 

Trying to hide behind the tree, 
But his knotted scarlet scarf 

Made him very plain to see. 



14 EMBARKATION 

Like a soft and smoky cloud 

Passed the webby net away; 
While its owner squealing loud 

Down behind the pear-tree lay; 
For the tall thin man came near, 

And his words were dark and gruff, 
And he swung the dwarf in the air 

By his long and scraggy scruff. 

There he kickled whimpering. 

But our rescuer touched the box, 
Open with a sudden spring 

Clashed the four-and- twenty locks; 
Then he crammed the dwarf inside, 

And the locks all clattered tight: 
Four-and-twenty times he tried 

Whether they were fastened right. 

Ah, he led us on our road, 
Showed us Wonder- Wander town; 



EMBARKATION 15 

Then he fled : behind him flowed 
Once again the rose-pink gown : 

Down the long deserted street, 
All the windows winked like eyes, 

And our little trotting feet 
Echoed to the starry skies. 

Low and long for evermore 

Where the Wonder- Wander sea 
Whispers to the wistful shore 

Purple songs of mystery, 
Down the shadowy quay we came — 

Though it hides behind the hill 
You will find it just the same 

And the seamen singing still. 

There we chose a ship of pearl, 

And her milky silken sail 
Seemed by magic to unfurl, 

Puffed before a fairy gale; 



16 EMBARKATION 

Shimmering o'er the purple deep, 
Out across the silvery bar, 

Softly as the wings of sleep 
Sailed we towards the morning star. 

Over us the skies were dark, 

Yet we never needed light; 
Softly shone our tiny bark 

Gliding through the solemn night; 
Softly bright our moony gleam, 

Glimmered o'er the glistening waves, 
Like a cold sea-maiden's dream 

Globed in twilit ocean caves. 

So all night our shallop passed 
Many a haunt of old desire, 

Blurs of savage blossom massed 
Red above a pirate-fire; 

Huts that gloomed and glanced among 
Fruitage dipping in the blue; 



EMBARKATION 17 

Songs the sirens never sung, 
Shores Ulysses never knew. 

All our fairy rigging shone 

Richly as a rainbow seen 
Where the moonlight floats upon 

Gossamers of gold and green : 
All the tiny spars were bright; 

Beaten gold the bowsprit was; 
But our pilot was the night, 

And our chart a looking-glass. 



PAET II 

THE ARRIVAL 

With rosy finger-tips the Dawn 

Drew back the silver veils, 
Till lilac shimmered into lawn 

Above the satin sails; 
And o'er the waters, white and wan, 

In tiny patterned state, 
We saw the streets of Old Japan 

Shine, like a willow plate. 

0, many a milk-white pigeon roams 

The purple cherry crops, 
The mottled miles of pearly domes, 

And blue pagoda tops, 
The river with its golden canes 

And dark piratic dhows, 

18 



THE ARRIVAL 19 

To where beyond the twisting vanes 
The burning mountain glows. 

A snow-peak in the silver skies 

Beyond that magic world, 
We saw the great volcano rise 

With incense o'er it curled, 
Whose tiny thread of rose and blue 

Has risen since time began, 
Before the first enchanter knew 

The peak of Old Japan. 

Nobody watched us quietly steer 
The pinnace to the painted pier, 

Except one pig-tailed mandarin, 
Who sat upon a chest of tea 
Pretending not to hear or see ! . . . 

His hands were very long and thin, 



20 THE ARRIVAL 

His face was very broad and white; 
And 0, it was a fearful sight 
To see him sit alone and grin ! 

His grin was very sleek and sly: 
Timidly we passed him by ! 

He did not seem at all to care: 
So, thinking we were safely past, 
We ventured to look back at last. 

0, dreadful blank ! — He was not there ! 
He must have hid behind his chest: 
We did not stay to see the rest. 

But, as in reckless haste we ran, 
We came upon the tall thin man, 
Who called to us and waved his fan, 

And offered us his palanquin: 
He said we must not go alone 
To seek the ruby wishing-stone, 

Because the white-faced mandarin 



THE ARRIVAL 21 

Would dog our steps for many a mile, 
And sit upon each purple stile 
Before we came to it, and smile 
And smile; his name was Creeping Sin. 

He played with children's beating hearts, 
And stuck them full of poisoned darts 

And long green thorns that stabbed and stung : 
He'd watch until we tried to speak, 
Then thrust inside his pasty cheek 

His long, white, slimy tongue: 
And smile at everything we said; 
And sometimes pat us on the head, 

And say that we were very young : 
He was a cousin of the man 
Who said that there was no Japan. 

And night and day this Creeping Sin 
Would follow the path of the palanquin; 
Yet if we still were fain to touch 



22 THE ARRIVAL 

The ruby, we must have no fear, 

Whatever we might see or hear, 

And the tall thin man would take us there; 

He did not fear that Sly One much, 
Except perhaps on a moonless night, 
Nor even then if the stars were bright. 

So, in the yellow palankeen 

We swung along in state between 

Twinkling domes of gold and green 

Through the rich bazaar, 
Where the cross-legged merchants sat, 
Old and almond-eyed and fat, 
Each upon a gorgeous mat, 

Each in a cymar; 
Each in crimson samite breeches, 
Watching his barbaric riches. 

Cherry blossom breathing sweet 



THE ARRIVAL 23 

Whispered o'er the dim blue street 
Where with fierce uncertain feet 

Tawny pirates walk: 
All in belts and baggy blouses, 
Out of dreadful opium houses, 
Out of dens where Death carouses, 

Horribly they stalk; 
Girt with ataghan and dagger, 
Right across the road they swagger. 

And where the cherry orchards blow, 
We saw the maids of Miyako, 
Swaying softly to and fro 

Through the dimness of the dance: 
Like sweet thoughts that shine through dreams 
They glided, wreathing rosy gleams, 
With stately sounds of silken streams, 

And many a slim kohl-lidded glance; 
Then fluttered with tiny rose-bud feet 



24 THE ARRIVAL 

To a soft frou-frou and a rhythmic beat 
As the music shimmered, pursuit, retreat, 

"Hands across, retire, advance!" 
And again it changed and the glimmering throng 
Faded into a distant song. 

Song 

The maidens of Miyako 

Dance in the sunset hours, 
Deep in the sunset glow, 

Under the cherry flowers. 

With dreamy hands of pearl 

Floating like butterflies, 
Dimly the dancers whirl 

As the rose light dies; 

And their floating gowns, their hair 
Upbound with curious pins, 



THE ARRIVAL 25 

Fade thro' the darkening air 
With the dancing mandarins. 

And then, as we went, the tall thin man 
Explained the manners of Old Japan; 

If you pitied a thing, you pretended to sneer ; 
Yet if you were glad you ran to buy 
A captive pigeon and let it fly; 

And, if you were sad, you took a spear 
To wound yourself, for fear your pain 
Should quietly grow less again. 

And, again he said, if we wished to find 
The mystic City that enshrined 

The stone so few on earth had found, 
We must be very brave; it lay 
A hundred haunted leagues away, 

Past many a griffon-guarded ground, 
In depths of dark and curious art, 



26 THE ABBIVAL 

Where passion-flowers enfold apart 

The Temple of the Flaming Heart, 

The City of the Secret Wound. 

About the fragrant fall of day 
We saw beside the twisted way 

A blue-domed tea-house, bossed with gold; 
Hungry and thirsty we entered in: 
How should we know what Creeping Sin 

Had breathed in that Emperor's ear who sold 
His own dumb soul for an evil jewel 
To the earth-gods, blind and ugly and cruel ? . . . 

We drank sweet tea as his tale was told, 
In a garden of blue chrysanthemums, 
While a drowsy swarming of gongs and drums 

Out of the sunset dreamily rolled. 

But, as the murmur nearer drew, 
A fat black bonze, in a robe of blue, 
Suddenly at the gate appeared; 



THE ARRIVAL 27 

And close behind, with that evil grin, 
Was it Creeping Sin, was it Creeping Sin? 

The bonze looked quietly down and sneered. 
Our guide ! Was he sleeping ? We could not 

wake him, 
However we tried to pinch and shake him! 

Nearer, nearer the tumult came, 
Till, as a glare of sound and flame, 

Blind from a terrible furnace door 
Blares, or the mouth of a dragon, blazed 
The seething gateway : deaf and dazed 

With the clanging and the wild uproar 
We stood; while a thousand oval eyes 
Gapped our fear with a sick surmise. 

Then, as the dead sea parted asunder, 
The clamour clove with a sound of thunder 

In two great billows; and all was quiet. 
Gaunt and black was the palankeen 



28 THE ARRIVAL 

That came in dreadful state between 

The frozen waves of the wild-eyed riot 
Curling back from the breathless track 
Of the Nameless One who is never seen: 

The close drawn curtains were thick and black ; 
But wizen and white was the tall thin man 

As he rose in his sleep: 
His eyes were closed, his lips were wan, 

He crouched like a leopard that dares not leap. 

The bearers halted : the tall thin man, 
Fearfully dreaming, waved his fan, 

With wizard ringers, to and fro; 
While, with a whimper of evil glee, 
The Nameless Emperor's mad Moonshee 

Stepped in front of us: dark and slow 
Were the words of the doom that he dared not 

name; 
But, over the ground, as he spoke, there came 



THE ARRIVAL 29 

Tiny circles of soft blue flame; 

Like ghosts of flowers they began to glow, 
And flow like a moonlit brook between 
Our feet and the terrible palankeen. 

But the Moonshee wrinkled his long thin eyes, 
And sneered, "Have you stolen the strength of 
the skies? 

Then pour before us a stream of pearl ! 
Give us the pearl and the gold we know, 
And our hearts will be softened and let you go ; 

But these are toys for a foolish girl — 
These vanishing blossoms — what are they worth ? 
They are not so heavy as dust and earth : 

Pour before us a stream of pearl!" 

Then, with a wild strange laugh, our guide 
Stretched his arms to the West and cried 
Once, and a song came over the sea; 



30 THE ARRIVAL 

And all the blossoms of moon-soft fire 
Woke and breathed as a wind-swept lyre, 

And the garden surged into harmony; 
Till it seemed that the soul of the whole world 

sung, 
And every petal became a tongue 

To tell the thoughts of Eternity. 

But the Moonshee lifted his painted brows 
And stared at the gold on the blue tea-house: 
"Can you clothe your body with dreams?" 

he sneered ; 
"If you taught us the truths that we always 

know 
Our heart might be softened and let you go : 
Can you tell us the length of a monkey's 

beard, 
Or the weight of the gems on the Emperor's fan, 
Or the number of parrots in Old Japan?" 



THE ARRIVAL 31 

And again, with a wild strange laugh, our guide 
Looked at him; and he shrunk aside, 
Shrivelling like a flame- touched leaf; 
For the red-cross blossoms of soft blue fire 
Were growing and fluttering higher and 
higher, 
Shaking their petals out, sheaf by sheaf, 
Till with disks like shields and stems like towers 
Burned the host of the passion-flowers 

. . . Had the Moonshee flown like a midnight 
thief? 
. . . Yet a thing like a monkey, shrivelled and 

black, 
Chattered and danced as they forced him back. 

As the coward chatters for empty pride, 
In the face of a foe that he cannot but fear, 

It chattered and leapt from side to side, 
And its voice rang strangely upon the ear. 



32 THE ARRIVAL 

As the cry of a wizard that dares not own 
Another's brighter and mightier throne; 
As the wrath of a fool that rails aloud 

On the fire that burnt him; the brazen 
bray 
Clamoured and sang o'er the gaping crowd, 

And flapped like a gabbling goose away. 

The Cry of the Mad Moonshee 

// the blossoms were beans, 

I should know what it means — 
This blaze, which I certainly cannot endure; 

It is evil, too, 

For its colour is blue, 
And the sense of the matter is quite obscure. 

Celestial truth 

Is the food of youth; 
But the music was dark as a moonless night. 



THE ARRIVAL 33 

The facts in the song 

Were all of them wrong, 
And there was not a single sum done right; 
Tho' a metaphysician amongst the crowd, 
In a voice that was notably deep and loud, 
Repeated, as fast as he was able, 
The whole of the multiplication table. 

So the cry flapped off as a wild goose flies, 
And the stars came out in the trembling 
skies, 

And ever the mystic glory grew 
In the garden of blue chrysanthemums, 
Till there came a rumble of distant drums; 

And the multitude suddenly turned and flew. 
... A dead ape lay where their feet had 

been . . . 
And we called for the yellow palankeen, 

And the flowers divided and let us through. 



34 THE ARRIVAL 

The black-barred moon was large and low 
When we came to the Forest of Ancient Woe; 

And over our heads the stars were bright. 
But through the forest the path we travelled 
Its phosphorescent aisle unravelled 

In one thin ribbon of dwindling light: 
And twice and thrice on the fainting track 
We paused to listen. The moon grew black, 

But the coolies' faces glimmered white, 
As the wild woods echoed in dreadful chorus 
A laugh that came horribly hopping o'er us 

Like monstrous frogs thro' the murky night. 

Then the tall thin man as we swung along 
Sang us an old enchanted song 

That lightened our hearts of their fearful load. 
But, e'en as the moonlit air grew sweet, 
We heard the pad of stealthy feet 

Dogging us down the thin white road; 



THE ARRIVAL 85 

And the song grew weary again and harsh, 
And the black trees dripped like the fringe of a 
marsh, 
And a laugh crept out like a shadowy toad; 
And we knew it was neither ghoul nor djinn: 
It was Creeping Sin! It was Creeping Sin! 

But we came to a bend, and the white moon 

glowed 
Like a gate at the end of the narrowing road 

Far away; and on either hand, 
As guards of a path to the heart's desire, 
The strange tall blossoms of soft blue fire 

Stretched away thro' that unknown land, 
League on league with their dwindling lane 
Down to the large low moon; and again 
There shimmered around us that mystical strain, 

In a tongue that it seemed we could under- 
stand. 



36 THE ARRIVAL 

Song 

Hold by right and rule by fear 
Till the slowly broadening sphere 
Melting through the skies above 
Merge into the sphere of love. 

Hold by might until you find 
Might is powerless o'er the mind: 
Hold by Truth until you see, 
Though they bow before the wind, 
Its towers can mock at liberty. 

Time, the seneschal, is blind; 
Time is blind: and what are wef 
Captives of Infinity, 
Claiming through Truth's prison bars 
Kinship with the wandering stars. 



THE ARRIVAL 37 

0, who could tell the wild weird sights 
We saw in all the days and nights 

We travelled through those forests old. 
We saw the griffons on white cliffs, 

Among fantastic hieroglyphs, 

Guarding enormous heaps of gold: 
We saw the Ghastroi — curious men 
Who dwell, like tigers, in a den, 

And howl whene'er the moon is cold; 
They stripe themselves with red and black 
And ride upon the yellow Yak. 

Their dens are always ankle-deep 
With twisted knives, and in their sleep 

They often cut themselves; they say 
That if you wish to live in peace 
The surest way is not to cease 

Collecting knives; and never a day 
Can pass, unless they buy a few; 



38 THE ARRIVAL 

And as their enemies buy them too 

They all avert the impending fray, 
And starve their children and their wives 
To buy the necessary knives. 



The forest leapt with shadowy shapes 

As we came to the great black Tower of 

Apes: 
But we gave them purple figs and grapes 

In alabaster amphoras: 
We gave them curious kinds of fruit 
With betel nuts and orris-root, 

And then they let us pass: 
And when we reached the Tower of Snakes 
We gave them soft white honey-cakes, 

And warm sweet milk in bowls of brass : 
And on the hundredth eve we found 
The City of the Secret Wound. 



THE ARBIVAL 39 

We saw the mystic blossoms blow 
Round the City, far below; 
Faintly in the sunset glow 
We saw the soft blue glory flow 

O'er many a golden garden gate: 
And o'er the tiny dark green seas 
Of tamarisks and tulip-trees, 
Domes like golden oranges 

Dream aloft elate. 



And clearer, clearer as we went, 

We heard from tower and battlement 

A whisper, like a warning, sent 

From watchers out of sight; 
And clearer, brighter, as we drew 
Close to the walls, we saw the blue 
Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew 

Thro' zones of pearly light. 



40 THE ARRIVAL 

On either side, a fat black bonze 
Guarded the gates of red-wrought bronze, 
Blazoned with blue sea-dragons 

And mouths of yawning flame; 
Down the road of dusty red, 
Though their brown feet ached and bled, 
Our coolies went with joyful tread : 
Like living fans the gates outspread 

And opened as we came. 



PART III 

THE MYSTIG RUBY 

The white moon dawned; the sunset died; 
And stars were trembling when we spied 

The rose-red temple of our dreams: 
Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool 
With many an onyx-paven pool, 

Amid soft sounds of flowing streams; 
Where star-shine shimmered through the white 
Tall fountain-shafts of crystal light 

In ever changing rainbow-gleams. 

Priests in flowing yellow robes 
Glided under rosy globes; 

Through the green pomegranate boughs 
Moonbeams poured their coloured rain; 

41 



42 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

Roofs of sea-green porcelain 
Jutted o'er the rose-red house; 

Bells were hung beneath its eaves; 

Every wind that stirred the leaves 
Tinkled as tired water does. 

The temple had a low broad base 
Of black bright marble; all its face 

Was marble bright in rosy bloom; 
And where two sea-green pillars rose 
Deep in the flower-soft eave-shadows 

We saw, thro' richly sparkling gloom, 
Wrought in marvellous years of old 
With bulls and peacocks bossed in gold, 

The doors of powdered lacquer loom. 

Quietly then the tall thin man, 
Holding his turquoise- tinted fan, 
Alighted from the palanquin; 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 43 

We followed: never painter dreamed 
Of how that dark rich temple gleamed 

With gules of jewelled gloom within; 
And as we wondered near the door 
A priest came o'er the polished floor 

In sandals of soft serpent-skin; 
His mitre shimmered bright and blue 
With pigeon's breast-plumes. When he 
knew 

Our quest he stroked his broad white 
chin, 
And looked at us with slanting eyes 
And smiled; then through his deep disguise 
We knew him! It was Creeping Sin! 

But cunningly he bowed his head 
Down on his gilded breast and said 

Come: and he led us through the dusk 
Of passages whose painted walls 



44 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

Gleamed with dark old festivals; 

Till where the gloom grew sweet with musk 
And incense, through a door of amber 
We came into a high-arched chamber. 

There on a throne of jasper sat 
A monstrous idol, black and fat; 

Thick rose-oil dropped upon its head: 
Drop by drop, heavy and sweet, 
Trickled down to its ebon feet 

Whereon the blood of goats was shed, 
And smeared around its perfumed knees 
In savage midnight mysteries. 

It wore about its bulging waist 

A belt of dark green bronze enchased 

With big, soft, cloudy pearls; its wrists 
Were clasped about with moony gems 
Gathered from dead kings' diadems; 

Its throat was ringed with amethysts, 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 45 

And in its awful hand it held 
A softly smouldering emerald. 

Silkily murmured Creeping Sin, 

"This is the stone you wished to win!" 

"White Snake," replied the tall thin 
man, 
"Show us the Ruby Stone, or I 
Will slay thee with my hands." The sly 

Long eyelids of the priest began 
To slant aside; and then once more 
He led us through the fragrant door. 

And now along the passage walls 
Were painted hideous animals, 

With hooded eyes and cloven stings: 
In the incense that like shadowy hair 
Streamed over them they seemed to stir 

Their craggy claws and crooked wings. 



46 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

At last we saw strange moon-wreaths curl 
Around a deep, soft porch of pearl. 

0, what enchanter wove in dreams 
That chapel wild with shadowy gleams 

And prismy colours of the moon? 
Shrined like a rainbow in a mist 
Of flowers, the fretted amethyst 

Arches rose to a mystic tune; 
And never mortal art inlaid 
Those cloudy floors of sea-soft jade. 

There, in the midst, an idol rose 
White as the silent starlit snows 

On lonely Himalayan heights: 
Over its head the spikenard spilled 
Down to its feet, with myrrh distilled 

In distant, odorous Indian nights: 
It held before its ivory face 
A flaming yellow chrysoprase. 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 47 

0, silkily murmured Creeping Sin, 
"This is the stone you wished to win." 

But in his ear the tall thin man 
Whispered with slow, strange lips — we 

knew 
Not what, but Creeping Sin went blue 

With fear; again his eyes began 
To slant aside; then through the porch 
He passed, and lit a tall, brown torch. 

Down a corridor dark as death, 
With beating hearts and bated breath 

We hurried; far away we heard 
A dreadful hissing, fierce as fire 
When rain begins to quench a pyre; 

And where the smoky torch-light flared 
Strange vermin beat their bat-like wings, 
And the wet walls dropped with slimy 
things. 



48 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

And darker, darker, wound the way, 
Beyond all gleams of night and day, 

And still that hideous hissing grew 
Louder and louder on our ears, 
And tortured us with eyeless fears; 

Then suddenly the gloom turned blue, 
And, in the wall, a rough rock cave 
Gaped, like a phosphorescent grave. 

And from the purple mist within 
There came a wild tumultuous din 

Of snakes that reared their heads and 
hissed 
As if a witch's cauldron boiled; 
All round the door great serpent* 
coiled, 

With eyes of glowing amethyst, 
Whose fierce blue flames began to slide 
Like shooting stars from side to side. 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 49 

Ah ! with a sickly gasping grin 
And quivering eyelids, Creeping Sin 

Stole to the cave; but, suddenly, 
As through its glimmering mouth he passed, 
The serpents flashed and gripped him fast: 

He wriggled and gave one awful cry, 
Then all at once the cave was cleared; 
The snakes with their victim had disappeared. 

And fearlessly the tall thin man 
Opened his turquoise-tinted fan 

And entered; and the mists grew bright, 
And we saw that the cave was a diamond hall 
Lit with lamps for a festival. 

A myriad globes of coloured light 
Went gliding deep in its massy sides, 
Like the shimmering moons in the glassy 
tides 

Where a sea-king's palace enchants the night. 



50 THE MYSTIC BUBY 

Gliding and flowing, a glory and wonder, 
Through each other, and over, and under, 

The lucent orbs of green and gold, 
Bright with sorrow or soft with sleep, 
In music through the glimmering deep, 

Over their secret axles rolled, 
And circled by the murmuring spheres 
We saw in a frame of frozen tears 

A mirror that made the blood run cold. 

For, when we came to it, we found 
It imaged everything around 

Except the face that gazed in it; 
And where the mirrored face should be 
A heart-shaped Ruby fierily 

Smouldered; and round the frame was 
writ, 
Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass, 
I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass. 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 51 

This is the Ruby none can touch: 
Many have loved it overmuch; 

Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh, 
Being as images of the flame 
That shall make earth and heaven the same 

When the fire of the end reddens the sky, 
And the world consumes like a burning pall, 

Till where there is nothing, there is all. 

So we looked up at the tall thin man 
And we saw that his face grew sad and 
wan: 

Tears were glistening in his eyes : 
At last, with a breaking sob, he bent 
His head upon his breast and went 

Swiftly away ! With dreadful cries 
We rushed to the softly glimmering door 
And stared at the hideous corridor 

But his robe was gone as a dream that flies'. 



52 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

Back to the glass in terror we came, 

And stared at the writing round the frame. 

We could not understand one word: 
And suddenly we thought we heard 

The hissing of the snakes again : 
How could we front them all alone? 
0, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone 

And wished we were back on the flowery 
plain : 
And swifter than thought and swift as fear 
The whole world flashed, and behold we were 
there. 

Yes; there was the port of Old Japan, 
With its twisted patterns, white and wan, 
Shining like a mottled fan 

Spread by the blue sea, faint and far; 
And far away we heard once more 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 53 

A sound of singing on the shore, 
Where boys in blue kimonos bore 

Roses in a golden jar: 
And we heard, where the cherry orchards blow, 
The serpent-charmers fluting low, 
And the song of the maidens of Miyako. 

And at our feet unbroken lay 

The glass that had whirled us thither away : 

And in the grass, among the flowers 
We sat and wished all sorts of things: 
0, we were wealthier than kings! 

We ruled the world for several hours ! 
And then, it seemed, we knew not why, 
All the daisies began to die. 

We wished them alive again; but soon 

The trees all fled up towards the moon 

Like peacocks through the sunlit air: 



54 THE MYSTIC RUBY 

And the butterflies flapped into silver fish; 
And each wish spoiled another wish; 

Till we threw the glass down in despair; 
For, getting whatever you want to get, 
Is like drinking tea from a fishing net. 

At last we thought we'd wish once more 
That all should be as it was before; 

And then we'd shatter the glass, if we could ; 
But just as the world grew right again, 
We heard a wanderer out on the plain 

Singing what none of us understood; 
Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more 

sweet 
And the meadows were blossoming under his feet. 

And we felt a grand and beautiful fear, 
For we knew that a marvellous thought drew 
near; 
So we kept the glass for a little while: 



THE MYSTIC RUBY 55 

And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright, 
And the seas grew soft as a flower of light, 

And the meadows rippled from stile to stile; 
And memories danced in a musical throng 
Thro' the blossom that scented the wonderful 
song. 

Song 

We sailed across the silver seas 

And saw the sea-blue bowers, 
We saw the purple cherry trees, 

And all the foreign flowers. 
We travelled in a palanquin 

Beyond the caravan, 
And yet our hearts had never seen 

The Flower of Old Japan. 

The Flower above all other flowers, 
The Flower that never dies; 



56 THE MYSTIC EUBT 

Before whose throne the scented hours 

Offer their sacrifice; 
The Flower that here on earth below 

Reveals the heavenly plan; 
But only little children know 

The Flower of Old Japan. 

There, in the dim blue flowery plain 
We wished with the magic glass again 

To go to the Flower of the song's desire: 
And o'er us the whole of the soft blue sky 
Flashed like fire as the world went by, 

And far beneath us the sea like fire 
Flashed in one swift blue brilliant stream, 
And the journey was done, like a change in a 
dream. 



PART IV 

THE END OF THE QUEST 

Like the dawn upon a dream 

Slowly through the scented gloom 
Crept once more the ruddy gleam 

O'er the friendly nursery room. 
There, before our waking eyes, 

Large and ghostly, white and dim, 
Dreamed the Flower that never dies, 

Opening wide its rosy rim. 

Spreading like a ghostly fan, 

Petals white as porcelain, 

There the Flower of Old Japan 

Told us we were home again; 
67 



58 THE END OF THE QUEST 

For a soft and curious light 
Suddenly was o'er it shed, 

And we saw it was a white 
English daisy, ringed with red. 

Slowly, as a wavering mist 

Waned the wonder out of sight, 
To a sigh of amethyst, 

To a wraith of scented light. 
Flower and magic glass had gone; 

Near the clutching fire we sat 
Dreaming, dreaming, all alone, 

Each upon a furry mat. 

While the firelight, red and clear, 
Fluttered in the black wet pane, 

It was very good to hear 
Howling winds and trotting rain. 

For we found at last we knew 
More than all our fancy planned, 



THE END OF THE QUEST 59 

All the fairy tales were true, 
And home the heart of fairyland. 

EPILOGUE 

Carol, every violet has 
Heaven for a looking-glass ! 

Every little valley lies 
Under many-clouded skies; 
Every little cottage stands 
Girt about with boundless lands; 
Every little glimmering pond 
Claims the mighty shores beyond; 
Shores no seaman ever hailed, 
Seas no ship has ever sailed. 

All the shores when day is done 
Fade into the setting sun, 



60 THE END OF THE QUEST 

So the story tries to teach 
More than can be told in speech. 

Beauty is a fading flower, 
Truth is but a wizard's tower, 
Where a solemn death-bell tolls, 
And a forest round it rolls. 

We have come by curious ways 
To the Light that holds the days; 
We have sought in haunts of fear 
For that all-enfolding sphere: 
And lo ! it was not far, but near. 

We have found, foolish-fond, 
The shore that has no shore beyond. 

Deep in every heart it lies 
With its un transcended skies; 



THE END OF THE QUEST 61 

For what heaven should bend above 
Hearts that own the heaven of love? 

Carol, Carol, we have come 
Back to heaven, back to home. 



FOREST OF WILD THYME 



5o 

aijd 
BE/»TW 



APOLOGIA 

Critics, you have been so kind, 

I would not have you think me blind 

To all the wisdom that you preach; 
Yet before I strictlier run 

In straiter lines of chiselled speech, 
Give me one more hour, just one 

Hour to hunt the fairy gleam 

That flutters through this childish dream. 

It mocks me as it flies, I know: 
All too soon the gleam will go; 

Yet I love it and shall love 
My dream that brooks no narrower bars 

Than bind the darkening heavens above, 

67 



68 APOLOGIA 

My Jack o'Lan thorn of the stars: 

Then, I'll follow it no more, 

I'll light the lamp : I'll close the door, 



PRELUDE 

Hush! if you remember how we sailed to old 
Japan, 
Peterkin was with us then, our little 
brother Peterkin! 
Now we've lost him, so they say: I think 

the tall thin man 
Must have come and touched him with his 
curious twinkling fan 
And taken him away again, our merry little 
Peterkin ; 
He'll be frightened all alone; we'll find him 
if we can; 
Come and look for Peterkin, poor little 
Peterkin. 



70 PRELUDE 

No one would believe us if we told them 
what we know, 
Or they wouldn't grieve for Peter kin, merry 
little Peterkin; 
If they'd only watched us roaming through 

the streets of Miyako, 
And travelling in a palanquin where parents 
never go, 
And seen the golden gardens where we 
wandered once with Peterkin, 
And smelt the purple orchards where the 
cherry-blossoms blow, 
They wouldn't mourn for Peterkin, merry 
little Peterkin. 

Put away your muskets, lay aside the 
drum, 
Hang it by the wooden sword we made for 
little Peterkin! 



PRELUDE 71 

He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle's 

dumb, 
Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light 

is come, 
We'll wander through the roses where we 

marched of old with Peterkin, 
We'll search the summer sunset where the 

Hybla beehives hum, 
And — if we meet a fairy there — we'll ask 

for news of Peterkin. 

He was once our cabin-boy and cooked the 
sweets for tea; 
And 0, we've sailed around the world with 
laughing little Peterkin; 

From nursery floor to pantry door we've 
roamed the mighty sea, 

And come to port below the stairs in dis- 
tant Caribee, 



72 PRELUDE 

But wheresoe'er we sailed we took our little 
lubber Peterkin, 
Because his wide grey eyes believed much 
more than ours could see, 
And so we liked our Peterkin, our trusty 
little Peterkin. 

Peterkin, Peterkin, I think if you came 

back 
The captain of our host to-day should be the 

bugler Peterkin, 
And he should lead our smugglers up that steep 

and narrow track, 
A band of noble brigands, bearing each a 

mighty pack 
Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret 

cave of Peterkin, 
And he should wear the biggest boots and 

make his pistol crack, — 



PRELUDE 73 

The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we'd 

give them all to Peterkin. 

Come, my brother pirates, I am tired of play; 

Come and look for Peterkin, little brother 

Peterkin, 

Our merry little comrade that the fairies took 

away, 
For people think we've lost him, and when we 
come to say 
Our good-night prayers to mother, if we pray 
for little Peterkin 
Her eyes are very sorrowful, she turns her 
head away. 
Come and look for Peterkin, merry little 
Peterkin. 

God bless little Peterkin, wherever he may be ! 
Come and look for Peterkin, lonely little 
Peterkin : 



74 PRELUDE 

I wonder if they've taken him again across the 

sea 
From the town of Wonder-Wander and the 

Amfalula tree 
To the land of many marvels where we 

roamed of old with Peterkin, 
The land of blue pagodas and the flowery 

fields of tea ! 
Come and look for Peterkin, poor little 

Peterkin. 



PAET I 

THE SPLENDID SECRET 

Now father stood engaged in talk 
With mother on that narrow walk 
Between the laurels (where we play 
At Red-skins lurking for their prey) 
And the grey old wall of roses 
Where the Persian kitten dozes 
And the sunlight sleeps upon 
Crannies of the crumbling stone 
— So hot it is you scarce can bear 
Your naked hand upon it there, 
Though there luxuriating in heat 
With a slow and gorgeous beat 
White-winged currant-moths display 
Their spots of black and gold all day. 

75 



76 THE SPLENDID SECRET 

Well, since we greatly wished to know 
Whether we too might some day go 
Where little Peterkin had gone 
Without one word and all alone, 
We crept up through the laurels there 
Hoping that we might overhear 
The splendid secret, darkly great, 
Of Peterkin's mysterious fate; 
And on what high adventure bound 
He left our pleasant garden-ground, 
Whether for old Japan once more 
He voyaged from the dim blue shore, 
Or whether he set out to run 
By candle-light to Babylon. 

We just missed something father said 

About a young prince that was dead, 

A little warrior that had fought 

And failed : how hopes were brought to nought 



THE SPLENDID SECRET 77 

He said, and mortals made to bow 

Before the Juggernaut of Death, 
And all the world was darker now, 

For Time's grey lips and icy breath 
Had blown out all the enchanted lights 
That burned in Love's Arabian nights; 
And now he could not understand 
Mother's mystic fairy-land, 
"Land of the dead, poor fairy-tale," 
He murmured, and her face grew pale, 
And then with great soft shining eyes 
She leant to him — she looked so wise — 
And, with her cheek against his cheek, 
We heard her, ah so softly, speak. 

"Husband, there was a happy day, 
Long ago, in love's young May, 
When with a wild-flower in your hand 
You echoed that dead poet's cry — 



78 THE SPLENDID SECRET 

'Little flower, but if I could understand!' 
And you saw it had roots in the depths of 
the sky, 
And there in that smallest bud lay furled 
The secret and meaning of all the world." 

He shook his head and then he tried 
To kiss her, but she only cried 
And turned her face away and said, 
"You come between me and my dead! 
His soul is near me, night and day, 
But you would drive it far away; 
And you shall never kiss me now 
Until you lift that brave old brow 
Of faith I know so well; or else 
Refute the tale the skylark tells, 
Tarnish the glory of that May, 
Explain the Smallest Flower away." 
And still he said, "Poor fairy-tales, 



THE SPLENDID SECRET 79 

How terribly their starlight pales 
Before the solemn sun of truth 
That rises o'er the grave of youth!" 

"Is heaven a fairy-tale?" she said, — 
And once again he shook his head; 
And yet we ne'er could understand 
Why heaven should not be fairy-land, 
A part of heaven at least, and why 
The thought of it made mother cry, 
And why they went away so sad, 

And father still quite unforgiven, 
For what could children be but glad 

To find a fairy-land in heaven? 

And as we talked it o'er we found 
Our brains were really spinning round; 
But Dick, our eldest, late returned 
From school, by all the lore he'd learned 
Declared that we should seek the lost 



80 THE SPLENDID SECRET 

Smallest Flower at any cost. 
For, since within its leaves lay furled 
The secret of the whole wide world, 
He thought that we might learn therein 
The whereabouts of Peterkin; 
And, if we found the Flower, we knew 
Father would be forgiven, too; 
And mother's kiss atone for all 
The quarrel by the rose-hung wall; 
We knew not how, we knew not why, 
But Dick it was who bade us try, 
Dick made it all seem plain and clear, 
And Dick it is who helps us here 
To tell this tale of fairy-land 
In words we scarce can understand. 
For ere another golden hour 
Had passed, our anxious parents found 
We'd left the scented garden-ground 
To seek — the Smallest Flower. 



PART II 

THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

Oh, grown-ups cannot understand 

And grown-ups never will, 
How short's the way to fairy-land 

Across the purple hill: 
They smile : their smile is very bland, 

Their eyes are wise and chill; 
And yet — at just a child's command ■ 

The world's an Eden still. 

Under the cloudy lilac-tree, 

Out at the garden-gate, 
We stole, a little band of three, 

To tempt our fairy fate. 
There was no human eye to see, 

G 81 



82 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

No voice to bid us wait; 
The gardener had gone home to tea, 
The hour was very late. 

I wonder if you've, ever dreamed, 

In summer's noonday sleep, 
Of what the thyme and heather seemed 

To ladybirds that creep 
Like little crimson shimmering gems 
Between the tiny twisted stems 

Of fairy forests deep; 
And what it looks like as they pass 
Through jungles of the golden grass. 

If you could suddenly become 

As small a thing as they, 
A midget-child, a new Tom Thumb, 

A little gauze-winged fay, 
Oh then, as through the mighty shades 



THE FIRST DISCOVERY 83 

Of wild thyme woods and violet glades 

You groped your forest-way, 
How fraught each fragrant bough would be 
With dark o'erhanging mystery. 
How high the forest aisles would loom, 

What wondrous wings would beat 
Through gloamings loaded with perfume 

In many a rich retreat, 
While trees like purple censers bowed 
And swung beneath a swooning cloud 

Mysteriously sweet, 
Where flowers that haunt no mortal clime 
Burden the Forest of Wild Thyme. 

We'd watched the bats and beetles flit 

Through sunset-coloured air 
The night that we discovered it 

And all the heavens were bare: 
We'd seen the colours melt and pass 



84 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

Like silent ghosts across the grass 

To sleep — our hearts knew where ; 
And so we rose, and hand in hand 
We sought the gates of fairy-land. 

For Peterkin, oh Peterkin, 

The cry was in our ears, 
A fairy clamour, clear and thin 

From lands beyond the years; 
A wistful note, a dying fall 
As of the fairy bugle-call 

Some dreamful changeling hears, 
And pines within his mortal home 
Once more through fairy-land to roam. 
We left behind the pleasant row 

Of cottage window-panes, 
The village inn's red-curtained glow, 

The lovers in the lanes; 
And stout of heart and strong of will 



THE FIRST DISCOVERY 85 

We climbed the purple perfumed hill, 

And hummed the sweet refrains 
Of fairy tunes the tall thin man 
Taught us of old in Old Japan. 

So by the tall wide-barred church-gate 
Through which we all could pass 

We came to where that curious plate, 
That foolish plate of brass, 

Said Peterkin was fast asleep 

Beneath a cold and ugly heap 
Of earth and stones and grass. 

It was a splendid place for play, 

That churchyard, on a summer's day; 

A splendid place for hide-and-seek 

Between the grey old stones; 
Where even grown-ups used to speak 

In awestruck whispering tones; 



86 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

And here and there the grass ran wild 
In jungles for the creeping child, 

And there were elfin zones 
Of twisted flowers and words in rhyme 
And great sweet cushions of wild thyme. 

So in a wild thyme snuggery there 

We stayed awhile to rest; 
A bell was calling folk to prayer: 

One star was in the West: 
The cottage lights grew far away, 
The whole sky seemed to waver and sway 

Above our fragrant nest; 
And from a distant dreamland moon 
Once more we heard that fairy tune: 

Why, mother once had sung it us 

When, ere we went to bed, 
She told the tale of Pyramus, 



THE FIRST DISCOVERT 87 

HowThisbe found him dead 
And mourned his eyes as green as leeks, 
His cherry nose, his cowslip cheeks. 

That tune would oft around us float 

Since on a golden noon 
We saw the play that Shakespeare wrote 

Of Lion, Wall, and Moon; 
Ah, hark — the ancient fairy theme — 
Following darkness like a dream! 

The very song Will Shakespeare sang, 
The music that through Sherwood rang 
And Arden and that forest glade 
Where Hermie and Lysander strayed, 
And Puck cried out with impish glee, 
Lord, what fools these mortals be! 
Though the masquerade was mute 
Of Quince and Snout and Snug and Flute, 



88 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

And Bottom with his donkey's head 
Decked with roses, white and red, 
Though the fairies had forsaken 
Sherwood now and faintly shaken 
The forest-scents from off their feet, 
Yet from some divine retreat 
Came the music, sweet and clear, 
To hang upon the raptured ear 
With the free unfettered sway 
Of blossoms in the moon of May. 
Hark! the luscious fluttering 
Of flower-soft words that kiss and cling, 
And part again with sweet farewells, 
And rhyme and chime like fairy-bells. 

"/ know a bank where the wild thyme blows 
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, 
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, 
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. 11 



THE FIRST DISCOVERY 89 

Out of the undiscovered land 

So sweetly rang the song, 
We dreamed we wandered, hand in hand, 

The fragrant aisles along, 
Where long ago had gone to dwell 
In some enchanted distant dell 

The outlawed fairy throng 
When out of Sherwood's wildest glen 
They sank, forsaking mortal men. 

And as we dreamed, the shadowy ground 

Seemed gradually to swell; 
And a strange forest rose around, 

But how — we could not tell — 
Purple against a rose-red sky 
The big boughs brooded silently: 

Far off we heard a bell; 
And, suddenly, a great red light 
Smouldered before our startled sight. 



90 THE FIEST DISCOVERY 

Then came a cry, a fiercer flash, 

And down between the trees 
We saw great crimson figures crash, 

Wild-eyed monstrosities ; 
Great dragon-shapes that breathed a flame 
From roaring nostrils as they came: 

We sank upon our knees; 
And looming o'er us, ten yards high, 
Like battleships they thundered by. 

And then, as down that mighty dell 

We followed, faint with fear, 
We understood the tolling bell 

That called the monsters there; 
For right in front we saw a house 
Woven of wild mysterious boughs 

Bursting out everywhere 
In crimson flames, and with a shout 
The monsters rushed to put it out. 



THE FIRST DISCOVERY 91 

And, in a flash, the truth was ours ; 

And there we knew — we knew — 
The meaning of those trees like flowers, 

Those boughs of rose and blue, 
And from the world we'd left above 
A voice came crooning like a dove 

To prove the dream was true: 
And this — we knew it by the rhyme 
Must be — the Forest of Wild Thyme. 

For out of the mystical rose-red dome 

Of heaven the voice came murmuring down : 

Oh, Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home; 

Your house is on fire and your children are 
gone. 

We knew, we knew it by the rhyme, 

Though we seemed, after all, 
No tinier, yet the sweet wild thyme 



92 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

Towered like a forest tall 
All round us; oh, we knew not how, 
And yet — we knew those monsters now 

Our dream's divine recall 
Had dwarfed us, as with magic words; 
The dragons were but ladybirds! 

And all around us as we gazed, 
Half glad, half frightened, all amazed, 
The scented clouds of purple smoke 
In lurid gleams of crimson broke; 
And o'er our heads the huge black trees 
Obscured the sky's red mysteries; 
While here and there gigantic wings 
Beat o'er us, and great scaly things 
Fold over monstrous leathern fold 
Out of the smouldering copses rolled; 
And eyes like blood-red pits of flame 
From many a forest-cavern came 



THE FIRST DISCOVERT 93 

To glare across the blazing glade, 

Till, with the sudden thought dismayed, 

We wondered if we e'er should find 

The mortal home we left behind: 

Fear clutched us in a grisly grasp, 

We gave one wild and white-lipped gasp, 

Then turned and ran, with streaming hair, 

Away, away, and anywhere ! 

And hurry-skurry, heart and heel and hand, 
we tore along, 
And still our flying feet kept time and pat- 
tered on for Peterkin, 

For Peterkin, oh Peterkin, it made a kind of 
song 

To prove the road was right although it seemed 
so dark and wrong, 
As through the desperate woods we plunged 
and ploughed for little Peterkin, 



94 THE FIRST DISCOVERY 

Where many a hidden jungle-beast made 
noises like a gong 
That rolled and roared and rumbled as we 
rushed along to Peterkin. 

Peterkin, Peterkin, if you could only hear 
And answer us; one little word from little 
lonely Peterkin 
To take and comfort father, he is sitting in his 

chair 
In the library: he's listening for your footstep 
on the stair 
And your patter down the passage, he can 
only think of Peterkin: 
Come back, come back to father, for to-day 
he'd let us tear 
His newest book to make a paper-boat for 
little Peterkin. 



PAET III 

THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Ah, what wonders round us rose 

When we dared to pause and look, 
Curious things that seemed all toes, 

Goblins from a picture-book; 
Ants like witches, four feet high, 

Waving all their skinny arms, 
Glared at us and wandered by, 

Muttering their ancestral charms. 

Stately forms in green and gold 

Armour strutted through the glades, 

Just as Hamlet's ghost, we're told, 
Mooned among the midnight shades: 

95 



) THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Once a sort of devil came 
Scattering broken trees about, 

Winged with leather, eyed with flame, 
He was but a moth, no doubt. 

Here and there, above us clomb 

Feathery clumps of palm on high: 
Those were ferns, of course, but some 

Really seemed to touch the sky; 
Yes; and down one fragrant glade, 

Listening as we onward stole, 
Half delighted, half afraid, 

Dong j we heard the hare-bells toll! 

Something told us what that gleam 
Down the glen was brooding o'er; 

Something told us in a dream 
What the bells were tolling for! 

Something told us there was fear, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 97 

Horror, peril, on our way! 
Was it far or was it near? 
Near, we heard the night-wind say. 

Toll, the music reeled and pealed 

Through the vast and sombre trees, 
Where a rosy light revealed 

Dimmer, sweeter mysteries; 
And, like petals of the rose, 

Fairy fans in beauty beat, 
Light in light — ah, what were those 

Rhymes we heard the night repeat? 

Toll, a dream within a dream, 

Up an aisle of rose and blue, 
Up the music's perfumed stream 

Came the words, and then we knew, 
Knew that in that distant glen 

Once again the case was tried, 



98 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Hark ! — Who killed Cock Robin, then f 
And a tiny voice replied, 
"J 
killed 
Cock 
Robin!" 

"I! And who are You, sir, pray?" 

Growled a voice that froze our marrow 
"Who!" we heard the murderer say, 
"Lord, sir, I'm the famous Sparrow, 
And this 'ere's my bow and arrow! 
/ 

killed 
Cock 
Robin!" 

Then, with one great indrawn breath, 
Such a sighin' and a sobbin' 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 99 

Rose all round us for the death 

Of poor, poor Cock Robin, 
Oh, we couldn't bear to wait 
Even to hear the murderer's fate, 
Which we'd often wished to know 
Sitting in the fireside glow 
And with hot revengeful looks 
Searched for in the nursery-books; 
For the Robin and the Wren 
Are such friends to mortal men, 

Such dear friends to mortal men! 

Toll; and through the woods once more 
Stole we, drenched with fragrant dew : 
Toll; the hare-bell's burden bore 
Deeper meanings than we knew: 

Still it told us there was fear, 
Horror, peril on our way! 

Was it far or was it near? 
Near, we heard the night-wind say! 

LOfC. 



100 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Near; and once or twice we saw 

Something like a monstrous eye, 
Something like a hideous claw 

Steal between us and the sky: 
Still we hummed a dauntless tune 

Trying to think such things might be 
Glimpses of the fairy moon 

Hiding in some hairy tree. 

Yet around us as we went 

Through the glades of rose and blue 
Sweetness with the horror blent 

Wonder-wild in scent and hue: 
Here Aladdin's cavern yawned, 

Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes; 
There a head of clover dawned 

Like a cloud in eastern skies. 

Hills of topaz, lakes of dew, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 101 

Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen 
Passed we; and the forest's blue 

Sea of branches tossed between: 
Once we saw a gryphon make 

One soft iris as it passed 
Like the curving meteor's wake 

O'er the forest, far and fast. 

Winged with purple, breathing flame, 

Crimson-eyed we saw him go, 
Where — ah ! could it be the same 

Cockchafer we used to know ? — 
Valley-lilies overhead, 

High aloof in clustered spray, 
Far through heaven their splendour spread, 

Glimmering like the Milky Way. 

Mammoths father calls "extinct," 
Creatures that the cave-men feared, 



102 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Through that forest walked and blinked, 
Through that jungle crawled and leered; 

Beasts no Nimrod ever knew, 
Woolly bears of black and red; 

Crocodiles, we wondered who 
Ever dared to see them fed. 

Were they lizards? If they were, 

They could swallow us with ease; 
But they slumbered quietly there 

In among the mighty trees; 
Red and silver, blue and green, 

Played the moonlight on their scales; 
Golden eyes they had, and lean 

Crooked legs with cruel nails. 

Yet again, oh, faint and far, 
Came the shadow of a cry, 
Like the calling of a star 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 103 

To its brother in the sky; 
Like an echo in a cave 

Where young mermen sound their shells, 
Like the wind across a grave 

Bright with scent of lily-bells. 

Like a fairy hunter's horn 

Sounding in some purple glen 
Sweet revelly to the morn 

And the fairy quest again: 
Then, all round it surged a song 

We could never understand 
Though it lingered with us long, 

And it seemed so sad and grand. 

Song 
Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn, 

Summon the day of deliverance in: 
We are weary of bearing the burden of scorn 



104 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

As we yearn for the home that we never shall 
win; 
For here there is weeping and sorrow and sin, 
And the poor and the weak are a spoil for the 
strong ! 
Ah! when shall the song of the ransomed begin? 
The world is grown weary with waiting so 
long. 

Little Boy Blue, you are gallant and brave, 
There was never a doubt in those clear bright 
eyes; 
Come, challenge the grim dark Gates of the Grave 

As the skylark sings to those infinite skies! 
This world is a dream, say the old and the wise, 
And its rainbows arise o'er the false and the 
true; 
But the mists of the morning are made of our 
sighs, — 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 105 

Ah, shatter them, scatter them, Little Boy 
Blue! 

Little Boy Blue, if the child-heart knows, 

Sound but a note as a little one may; 
And the thorns of the desert shall bloom with the 
rose, 

And the Healer shall wipe all tears away; 
Little Boy Blue, we are all astray, 

The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the 
corn, 
Ah, set the world right, as a little one may; 

Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn! 

Yes; and there between the trees 

Circled with a misty gleam 
Like the light a mourner sees 

Round an angel in a dream; 
Was it he? oh, brave and slim, 



106 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Straight and clad in sery blue, 
Lifting to his lips the dim 
Golden horn? We never knew! 

Never; for a witch's hair 

Flooded all the moonlit sky, 
And he vanished, then and there, 

In the twinkling of an eye: 
Just as either boyish cheek 

Puffed to set the world aright, 
Ere the golden horn could speak 

Round him flowed the purple night. 



At last we came to a round black road 

That tunnelled through the woods and showed, 

Or so we thought, a good clear way 

Back to the upper lands of day; 

Great silken cables overhead 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 107 

In many a mighty mesh were spread 
Netting the rounded arch, no doubt 
To keep the weight of leafage out. 
And, as the tunnel narrowed down, 
So thick and close the cords had grown 
No leaf could through their meshes stray, 
And the faint moonlight died away; 
Only a strange grey glimmer shone 
To guide our weary footsteps on, 
Until, tired out, we stood before 
The end, a great grey silken door. 

Then from out a weird old wicket, overgrown 

with shaggy hair 
Like a weird and wicked eyebrow round a 
weird and wicked eye, 

Two great eyeballs and a beard 
For one ghastly moment peered 
At our faces with a sudden stealthy stare: 



108 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Then the door was opened wide, 
And a hideous hermit cried 
With a shy and soothing smile from out his lair, 
Won't you walk into my parlour f I can make 
you cosy there! 

And we couldn't quite remember where we'd 

heard that phrase before, 
As the great grey-bearded ogre stood beside 

his open door; 
But an echo seemed to answer from a land 

beyond the sky — 
Won't you walk into my parlour? said the 

spider to the fly! 

Then we looked a little closer at the ogre as 

he stood 
With his great red eyeballs glowing like two 

torches in a wood, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 109 

And his mighty speckled belly and his dread- 
ful clutching claws, 

And his nose — a horny parrot's beak, his 
whiskers and his jaws; 

Yet he seemed so sympathetic, and we saw 
two tears descend, 

As he murmured, "I'm so ugly, but I've lost 
my dearest friend ! 

I tell you most lymphatic'ly, I've yearnings 
in my soul," — 

And right along his parrot's beak we saw the 
tear-drops roll; 

He's an arrant sentimentalist , we heard a dis- 
tant sigh, 

Won't you weep upon my bosom? said the 
spider to the fly. 

"If you'd dreamed my dreams of beauty, if 
you'd seen my works of art, 



110 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

If you'd felt the cruel hunger that is gnawing 

at my heart, 
And the grief that never leaves me and the 

love I can't forget, 
(For I loved with all the letters in the Chinese 

alphabet !) 
Oh, you'd all come in to comfort me: you 

ought to help the weak; 
And I'm full of melting moments ; and — I — 

know — the — thing — you — seek ! " 
And the haunting echo answered, Well, I'm 

sure you ought to try; 
There's a duty to one's neighbour, said the spider 

to the fly. 

So we walked into his parlour 

Though a gleam was in his eye; 
And it was the prettiest parlour 

That ever we did spy! 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 111 

But we saw by the uncertain 
Misty light, shot through with gleams 

Of many a silken curtain 
Broidered o'er with dreadful dreams, 

That he locked the door behind us! So we 
stood with bated breath 

In a silence deep as death. 

There were scarlet gleams and crimson 

In the curious foggy grey, 
Like the blood-red light that swims on 

Old canals at fall of day, 
Where the smoke of some great city loops and 

droops in gorgeous veils 
Round the heavy purple barges' tawny sails. 

Were those creatures gagged and muffled 

See — there — by that severed head ? 
Was it but a breeze that ruffled 



112 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Those dark curtains, splashed with red, 
Ruffled the dark figures on them, made them 

moan like things in pain? 
How we wished that we were safe at home 

again. 

3jC 5p *|» *l> *P 

"Oh, we want to hear of Peterkin; good sir, 

you say you know; 
Won't you tell us, won't you put us in the 

way we want to go?" 
So we pleaded, for he seemed so very full of 

sighs and tears 
That we couldn't doubt his kindness, and 

we smothered all our fears; 
But he said, "You must be crazy if you come 

to me for help; 
Why should I desire to send you to your 

horrid little whelp?" 
And again the foolish echo made a far-away reply, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 113 

Oh, don't come to me for comfort, 
Pray don't look to me for comfort, 
Heavens! you mustn't be so selfish, said the 
spider to the fly. 

"Still, when the King of Scotland, so to speak, 

was in a hole, 
He was aided by my brother: it's a story to 

console 
The convict on the treadmill and the infant 

with a sum, 
For it teaches you to try again until your 

kingdom's come! 
The monarch dawdled in that hole for cen- 
turies of time 
Until my own twin-brother rose and showed 

him how to climb: 
He showed him how to swing and sway upon a 

tiny thread 



114 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Across a mighty precipice, and light upon his 
head 

Without a single fracture and without a single 
pain 

If he only did it frequently and tried and 
tried again:" 

And once again the whisper like a moral wan- 
dered by, 

Perseverance is a virtue, said the spider to the 

fly- 
Then he moaned, "My heart is hungry; but 

I fear I cannot eat, 
(Of course I speak entirely now of spiritual 

meat !) 
For I only fed an hour ago, but if we calmly 

sat 
While I told you all my troubles in a con- 
fidential chat 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 115 

It would give me such an appetite to hear you 

sympathise, 
And I should sleep the better — see, the tears 

are in my eyes ! 
Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let's 

keep 'em all alive, — 
Let's sit and talk awhile, my dears; we'll 

dine, I think, at five." 
And he brought his chair beside us in his most 

engaging style, 
And began to tell his story with a melancholy 

smile. — 

"You remember Miss Muffet 
Who sat on a tuffet 

Partaking of curds and whey; 
Well, / am the spider 
Who sat down beside her 

And frightened Miss Muffet away! 



116 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

There was nothing against her! 
An elderly spinster 

Were such a grammatical mate 
For a spider and spinner, 
I swore I would win her, 
I knew I had met with my fate! 

That love was the purest 
And strongest and surest 

I'd felt since my first thread was spun; 
I know I'm a bogey, 
But she's an old fogey, 

So why in the world did she run ? 
When Bruce was in trouble, 
A spider, my double, 

Encouraged him greatly, they say! 
Now, why should the spider 
Who sat down beside her 

Have frightened Miss Muffet away?" 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 117 

i 

He seemed to have much more to tell, 
But we could scarce be listening well, 
Although we tried with all our might 
To look attentive and polite; 
For still afar we heard the thin 
Clear fairy-call to Peterkin; 
Clear as a skylark's mounting song 
It drew our wandering thoughts along. 
Afar, it seemed, yet, ah, so nigh, 
Deep in our dreams it scaled the sky, 
In captive dreams that brooked no bars 
It touched the love that moves the stars, 
And with sweet music's golden tether 
It bound our hearts and heaven together. 

Song 

Wake, arise, the lake, the skies 

Fade into the faery day; 
Come and sing before our king, 



118 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Heed not Time, the dotard grey; 
Time has given his crown to heaven — 
Ah, how long? Awake, away! 

Then, as the Hermit rambled on 

In one long listless monotone, 

We heard a wild and mournful groan 

Come rumbling down the tunnelled way; 

A voice, an awful mournful bray, 

Singing some old funereal lay; 

Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull, 

Approached as if they trod on wool, 

And as they nearer, nearer drew, 

We saw our Host was listening too! 

His bulging eyes began to glow 

Like great red match-heads rubbed at night, 
And then he stole with a grim a O-ho!" 

To that grey old wicket where, out of sight, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 119 

Blandly rubbing his hands and humming, 
He could see, at one glance, whatever was 
coming. 

He had never been so jubilant or frolicsome 

before, 
As he scurried on his cruel hairy crutches to 
the door; 

And flung it open wide 
And most hospitably cried, 
" Won't you walk into my parlour? Fve 

some little friends to tea, — 
They'll be highly entertaining to a man of 
sympathy, 

Such as you yourself must be!" 

Then the man, for so he seemed, 

(Doubtless one who'd lost his way 
And was dwarfed as we had been !) 



120 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

In his ancient suit of black, 
Black upon the verge of green, 

Entered like a ghost that dreamed 
Sadly of some bygone day; 

And he never ceased to sing 
In that awful mournful bray. 

The door closed behind his back; 

He walked round us in a ring, 
And we hoped that he might free us, 

But his tears appeared to blind him, 
For he didn't seem to see us, 

And the Hermit crept behind him 
Like a cat about to spring. 

And the song he sang was this; 

And his nose looked very grand 
As he sang it, with a bliss 

Which we could not understand; 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 121 

For his voice was very sad, 

While his nose was proud and glad. 

Rain, April, rain, thy sunny, sunny tears! 
Through the black boughs the robe oj Spring 

appears, 
Yet, for the ghosts of all the bygone years, 
Rain, April, rain. 

Rain, April, rain; the rose will soon be glad; 
Spring will rejoice, a Spring I, too, have had; 
A little while, till I no more be sad, 
Rain, April, rain. 

And then the spider sprang 
Before we could breathe or speak, 

And one great scream out-rang 
As the terrible horny beak 

Crunched into the Sad Man's head, 



122 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

And the terrible hairy claws 
Clutched him around his middle; 

And he opened his lantern-jaws, 
And he gave one twist, one twiddle, 

One kick, and his sorrow was dead. 

And there, as he sucked his bleeding prey, 
The spider leered at us — "You will do, 

My sweet little dears, for another day; 
But this is the sort I like; huh! huh!" 

And there we stood, in frozen fear, 

Whiter than death, 

With bated breath; 
And lo! as we thought of Peterkin, 
Father and home and Peterkin, 
Once more that music clear and thin, 
Clear as a skylark's mounting song, 
But nearer now, more sweet, more strong, 
Drew all our wandering thoughts along, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 123 

Until it seemed, a mystic sea 

Of hidden delight and harmony 

Began to ripple and rise all round 

The prison where our hearts lay bound; 

And from sweet heaven's most rosy rim 

There swelled a distant marching hymn 

Which made the hideous Hermit pause 

And listen with lank down-drop t jaws, 

Till, with great bulging eyes of fear, 

He sought the wicket again to peer 

Along the tunnel, as like sweet rain 

We heard the still approaching strain, 

And, under it, the rhythmic beat 

Of multitudinous marching feet. 

Nearer, nearer, they rippled and rang, 

And this was the marching song they sang : — 

Song 
A fairy band are we 
In fairy-land: 



124 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Singing march we, hand in hand; 
Singing, singing all day long: 
(Some folk never heard a fairy-song!) 

Singing, singing, 
When the merry thrush is swinging 

On a springing spray; 
Or when the witch that lives in gloomy caves 
And creeps by night among the graves 

Calls a cloud across the day; 
Cease we never our fairy song, 
March we ever, along, along, 
Down the dale, or up the hill, 
Singing, singing still. 

And suddenly the Hermit turned and ran with 
all his might 
Through the back-door of his parlour as we 
thought of little Peterkin; 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 125 

And the great grey roof was shattered by a 

shower of rosy light, 
And the spider-house went floating, torn and 

tattered through the night 
In a flight of prismy streamers, as a shout 

went up for Peterkin; 
And lo, the glistening fairy-host stood there 

arrayed for fight, 
In arms of rose and green and gold, to lead 

us on to Peterkin. 

And all around us, rippling like a pearl and 

opal sea, 
The host of fairy faces winked a kindly hint 

of Peterkin; 
And all around the rosy glade a laugh of fairy 

glee 
Watched spider-streamers floating up from 

fragrant tree to tree 



126 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

Till the moonlight caught the gossamers and, 

oh we wished for Peterkin ! 
Each rope became a rainbow; but it made us 

ache to see 
Such a fairy forest-pomp without explaining 

it to Peterkin. 

Then all the glittering crowd 
With a courtly gesture bowed 
Like a rosy jewelled cloud 

Round a flame, 
As the King of Fairy-land, 
Very dignified and grand, 
Stepped forward to demand 

Whence we came. 

He'd a cloak of gold and green 
Such as caterpillars spin, 
For the fairy ways, I ween, 



THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 127 

Are very frugal; 
He'd a bow that he had borne 
Since the crimson Eden morn, 
And a honeysuckle horn 

For his bugle. 

So we told our tale of faery to the King of 
Fairy-land, 
And asked if he could let us know the latest 
news of Peterkin; 
And he turned him with a courtly smile and 

waved his jewelled wand 
And cried, Pease-blossom, Mustard-seed! You 
know the old command; 
Well; these are little children; you must 
lead them on to Peterkin. 
Then he knelt, the King of Faery knelt; his 
eyes were great and grand 
As he took our hands and kissed them, say- 
ing, Father loves your Peterkin! 



128 THE HIDEOUS HERMIT 

So out they sprang, on either side, 

A light fantastic fairy guide, 

To lead us to the land unknown 

Where little Peterkin was gone; 

And, as we went with timid pace, 

We saw that every fairy face 

In all that moonlit host was wet 

With tears: we never shall forget 

The mystic hush that seemed to fade 

Away like sound, as down the glade 

We passed beyond their zone of light. 

Then through the forest's purple night 

We trotted, at a pleasant speed, 

With gay Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed. 



PAET IV 

PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Shyly we surveyed our guides 
As through the gloomy woods we went 
In the light that the straggling moonbeams 
lent: 

We envied them their easy strides! 
Pease-blossom in his crimson cap 

And delicate suit of rose-leaf green, 
His crimson sash and his jewelled dagger, 
Strutted along with an elegant swagger 
Which showed that he didn't care one rap 

For anything less than a Fairy Queen: 
His eyes were deep like the eyes of a poet, 

Although his crisp and curly hair 
Certainly didn't seem to show it! 

k 129 



130 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

While Mustard-seed was a devil-may-care 
Epigrammatic and pungent fellow 
Clad in a splendid suit of yellow, 
With emerald stars on his glittering breast 

And eyes that shone with a diamond light: 
They made you feel sure it would always be 
best 
To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps 
quite 
So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could 

be 
Quite such a debonair fairy as he? 

We never could tell you one-half that we heard 
And saw on that journey. For instance, a 

bird 
Ten times as big as an elephant stood 
By the side of a nest like a great thick wood: 
The clouds in glimmering wreaths were spread 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 131 

Behind its vast and shadowy head 

Which rolled at us trembling below. (Its eyes 

Were like great black moons in those pearl- 
pale skies.) 

And we feared he might take us, perhaps, for 
a worm. 

But he ruffled his breast with the sound of a 

storm, 
And snuggled his head with a careless disdain 
Under his huge hunched wing again; 
And Mustard-seed said, as we stole thro' the 

dark, 
There was nothing to fear : it was only a Lark ! 

And so he cheered the way along 
With many a neat little epigram, 
While dear Pease-blossom before him swam 

On a billow of lovely moonlit song, 



132 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Telling us why they had left their home 
In Sherwood, and had hither come 
To dwell in this magical scented clime, 
This dim old Forest of sweet Wild Thyme. 

"Men toil," he said, "from morn till night 
With bleeding hands and blinded sight 
For gold, more gold ! They have betrayed 
The trust that in their souls was laid; 
Their fairy birthright they have sold 
For little disks of mortal gold; 
And now they cannot even see 
The gold upon the greenwood tree, 
The wealth of coloured lights that pass 
In soft gradations through the grass, 
The riches of the love untold 
That wakes the day from grey to gold; 
And howsoe'er the moonlight weaves 
Magic webs among the leaves 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 133 

Englishmen care little now 

For elves beneath the hawthorn bough: 

Nor if Robin should return 

Dare they of an outlaw learn; 

For them the Smallest Flower is furled, 

Mute is the music of the world; 

And unbelief has driven away 

Beauty from the blossomed spray." 

Then Mustard-seed with diamond eyes 
Taught us to be laughter-wise, 
And he showed us how that Time 
Is much less powerful than a rhyme; 
And that Space is but a dream; 
"For look/' he said, with eyes agleam, 
"Now you are become so small 
You think the Thyme a forest tall; 
But underneath your feet you see 
A world of wilder mystery 



134 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 

Where, if you were smaller yet, 

You would just as soon forget 

This forest, which you'd leave above 

As you have left the home you love! 

For, since the Thyme you used to know 

Seems a forest here below, 

What if you should sink again 

And find there stretched a mighty plain 

Between each grass-blade and the next? 

You'd think till you were quite perplexed! 

Especially if all the flowers 

That lit the sweet Thyme-forest bowers 

Were in that wild transcendent change 

Turned to Temples, great and strange, 

With many a pillared portal high 

And domes that swelled against the sky! 

How foolish, then, you will agree, 

Are those who think that all must see 

The world alike, or those who scorn 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 135 

Another who, perchance, was born 

Where — in a different dream from theirs — 

What they call sins to him are prayers ! 

We cannot judge; we cannot know; 

All things mingle; all things flow; 

There's only one thing constant here — 

Love — that un transcended sphere : 

Love, that while all ages run 

Holds the wheeling worlds in one; 

Love that, as your sages tell, 

Soars to heaven and sinks to hell." 

Even as he spoke, we seemed to grow 
Smaller, the Thyme trees seemed to go 
Farther away from us: new dreams 
Flashed out on us with mystic gleams 
Of mighty Temple-domes: deep awe 
Held us all breathless as we saw 
A carven portal glimmering out 



136 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Between new flowers that put to rout 
Our other fancies: in sweet fear 
We tiptoed past, and seemed to hear 
A sound of singing from within 
That told our souls of Peterkin: 
Our thoughts of him were still the same 
Howe'er the shadows went and came ! 
So, on we wandered, hand in hand, 
And all the world was fairy-land. 

And as we went we seemed to hear 

Surging up from distant dells 
A solemn music, soft and clear 

As if a field of lily-bells 
Were tolling all together, sweet 

But sad and low and keeping time 
To multitudinous marching feet 
With a slow funereal beat 

And a deep harmonious chime 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 137 

That told us by its dark refrain 
The reason fairies suffered pain. 

Song 
Bear her along 

Keep ye your song 

Tender and sweet and low: 

Fairies must die! 

Ask ye not why 

Ye that have hurt her so. 

Passing away — flower from the spray! Colour 

and light from the leaf! 

Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her 

bier, and the dust of its dreams on our grief. 

Men upon earth 
Bring us to birth 
Gently at even and morn! 
When as brother and brother 
They greet one another 



138 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

And smile — then a fairy is born ! 
But at each cruel word 
Upon earth that is heard, 
Each deed of unkindness or hate, 
Some fairy must pass 
From the games in the grass 
And steal thro' the terrible Gate. 
Passing away — flower from the spray! Colour 

and light from the leaf! 
Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her 
bier, and the dust of its dreams on our 
grief. 

If ye knew, if ye knew 

All the wrong that ye do 
By the thought that ye harbour alone, 

How the face of some fairy 

Grows wistful and weary 
And the heart in her cold as a stone ! 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 139 

Ah, she was bora 
Blithe as the mora 
Under an April sky, 
Bora of the greeting 
Of two lovers meeting! 
They parted, and so she must die! 
Passing away — flower from the spray! Colour 

and light from the leaf! 
Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her 
bier, and the dust of its dreams on our 
grief. 

Cradled in blisses, 

Yea, born of your kisses, 
Oh, ye lovers that met by the moon, 

She would not have cried 

In the darkness and died 
If ye had not forgotten so soon ! 

Cruel mortals, they say, 



140 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Live for ever and aye, 
And they pray in the dark on their knees! 

But the flowers that are fled 

And the loves that are dead, 
What heaven takes pity on these? 

Bear her along — singing your song — tender 

and sweet and low! 
Fairies must die! Ask ye not why — ye that 

have hurt her so. 

Passing away — 

Flower from the spray! 
Colour and light from the leaf! 

Soon, soon will the year 

Shed its bloom on her bier 
And the dust of its dreams on our grief! 

Then we came through a glittering crystal grot 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 141 

By a path like a pale moonbeam, 
And a broad blue bridge of Forget-me-not 

Over a shimmering stream, 
To where, through the deep blue dusk, a gleam 

Rose like the soul of the setting sun; 
A sunset breaking through the earth, 

A crimson sea of the poppies of dream, 
Deep as the sleep that gave them birth 

In the night where all earthly dreams are 
done. 

And then, like a pearl-pale porch of the moon, 
Faint and sweet as a starlit shrine, 
Over the gloom 
Of the crimson bloom 
We saw the Gates of Ivory shine; 
And, lulled and lured by the lullaby tune 
Of the cradling airs that drowsily creep 
From blossom to blossom, and lazily croon 



142 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Through the heart of the midnight's mystic 
noon, 
We came to the Gates of the City of Sleep. 

Faint and sweet as a lily's repose 
On the broad black breast of a midnight 
lake, 
The City delighted the cradling night: 
Like a straggling palace of cloud it rose; 
The towers were crowned with a crystal 
light 
Like the starry crown of a white snowflake 
As they pierced in a wild white pinnacled 

crowd, 
Through the dusky wreaths of enchanted cloud 
That swirled all round like a witch's hair. 

And we heard, as the sound of a great sea 
sighing, 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 143 

The sigh of the sleepless world of care; 
And we saw strange shadowy figures flying 
Up to the Ivory Gates and beating 

With pale hands, long and famished and 
thin; 
Like blinded birds we saw them dash 

Against the cruelly gleaming wall : 

We heard them wearily moan and call 
With sharp starved lips for ever entreating 

The pale doorkeeper to let them in. 
And still, as they beat, again and again, 

We saw on the moon-pale lintels a splash 
Of crimson blood like a poppy-stain 
Or a wild red rose from the gardens of pain 

That sigh all night like a ghostly sea 

From the City of Sleep to Gethsemane. 

And lo, as we neared that mighty crowd 
An old blind man came, crying aloud 



144 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

To greet us, as once the blind man cried 
In the Bible picture — you know we tried 
To paint that print, with its Eastern sun; 
But the reds and the yellows would mix and 

run, 
And the blue of the sky made a horrible mess 
Right over the edge of the Lord's white dress. 

And the old blind man, just as though he had 

eyes, 
Came straight to meet us; and all the cries 
Of the crowd were hushed; and a strange 

sweet calm 
Stole through the air like a breath of the balm 
That was wafted abroad from the Forest of 

Thyme 
(For it rolled all round that curious clime 
With its magical clouds of perfumed trees.) 
And the blind man cried, "Our help is at hand, 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 145 

Oh, brothers, remember the old command, 
Remember the frankincense and myrrh, 
Make way, make way for those little ones there ; 
Make way, make way, I have seen them afar 
Under a great white Eastern star; 
For I am the mad blind man who sees!" 
Then he whispered, softly — Of such as these; 
And through the hush of the cloven crowd 
We passed to the gates of the City, and there 
Our fairy heralds cried aloud — 
Open your Gates; don't stand and stare; 
These are the Children for whom our King 
Made all the star-worlds dance in a ring! 

And lo, like a sorrow that melts from the heart 
In tears, the slow gates melted apart; 
And into the City we passed like a dream; 
And then, in one splendid marching stream 
The whole of that host came following through. 



146 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

We were only children, just like you; 
Children, ah, but we felt so grand 
As we led them — although we could under- 
stand 
Nothing at all of the wonderful song 
That rose all round as we marched along. 

Song 
You that have seen how the world and its glory 

Change and grow old like the love of a friend; 
You that have come to the end of the story , 

You that were tired ere you came to the end; 
You that are weary of laughter and sorrow, 

Pain and pleasure, labour and sin, 
Sick of the midnight and dreading the morrow, 

Ah, come in; come in. 

You that are bearing the load of the ages; 

You that have loved overmuch and too late; 
You that confute all the saws of the sages; 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 147 

You that served only because you must wait, 
Knowing your work was a wasted endeavour; 

You that have lost and yet triumphed therein, 
Add loss to your losses and triumph for ever; 

Ah, come in; come in. 

And we knew as we went up that twisted street, 

With its violet shadows and pearl-pale walls, 
We were coming to Something strange and sweet, 

For the dim air echoed with elfin calls; 
And, far away, in the heart of the City, 

A murmur of laughter and revelry rose, — 
A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, 

And sweet as a swan-song's golden close. 

And then, once more, as we marched along, 
There surged all round us that wonderful song; 
And it swung to the tramp of our marching 
feet ; 



148 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 

But ah, it was tenderer now and so sweet 
That it made our eyes grow wet and blind, 
And the whole wide-world seem mother-kind, 
Folding us round with a gentle embrace, 
And pressing our souls to her soft sweet face. 

Song 

Dreams; dreams; ah, the memory blinding us, 

Blinding our eyes to the way that we go; 
Till the new sorrow come, once more reminding 
us 

Blindly of kind hearts, ours long ago: 
Mother-mine, whisper we, yours was the love 
for me! 

Still, though our paths lie lone and apart, 
Yours is the true love, shining above for me, 

Yours are the kind eyes, hurting my heart. 

Dreams; dreams; ah, how shall we sing of them, 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 149 

Dreams that we loved with our head on her 
breast: 
Dreams; dreams; and the cradle-sweet swing 
of them; 
Ay, for her voice was the sound we loved best: 
Can we remember at all or, forgetting it, 

Can we recall for a moment the gleam 
Of our childhood's delight and the wonder be- 
getting it, 
Wonder awakened in dreams of a dreamt 

And, once again, from the heart of the City 
A murmur of tenderer laughter rose, 

A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, 
And sweet as a swan-song's golden close; 

And it seemed as if some wonderful Fair 
Were charming the night of the City of 
Dreams, 

For, over the mystical din out there, 



150 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

The clouds were litten with flickering gleams, 
And a roseate light like the day's first flush 

Quivered and beat on the towers above, 
And we heard through the curious crooning 
hush 

An elfin song that we used to love. 
Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn . . . 

And the soft wind blew it the other way; 
And all that we heard was — Cow's in the corn; 

But we never heard anything half so gay! 

And ever we seemed to be drawing nearer 

That mystical roseate smoke-wreathed glare. 
And the curious music grew louder and clearer, 

Till Mustard-Seed said, "We are lucky, you 
see, 

We've arrived at a time of festivity!" 
And so to the end of the street we came, 

And turned a corner, and — there we were, 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 151 

In a place that glowed like the dawn of day, 

A crowded clamouring City square 
Like the cloudy heart of an opal, aflame 

With the lights of a great Dream-Fair: 
Thousands of children were gathered there, 

Thousands of old men, weary and grey, 
And the shouts of the showmen filled the air — 

This way ! This way ! This way ! 

And See-Saw; Margery Daw; we heard a 

rollicking shout, 
As the swing-boats hurtled over our heads to 

the tune of the roundabout; 
And Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn, 

we heard the showmen cry, 
And Dickory Dock, Vm as good as a clock, we 

heard the swings reply. 

This way, this way to your Heart's Desire; 



152 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Come, cast your burdens down; 
And the pauper shall mount his throne in the 
skies, 
And the king be rid of his crown: 
And souls that were dead shall be fed with fire 

From the fount of their ancient pain, 
And your lost love come with the light in her 
eyes 
Back to your heart again. 

Ah, here be sure she shall never prove 

Less kind than her eyes were bright; 
This way, this way to your old lost love, 

You shall kiss her lips to-night; 
This way for the smile of a dead man's face 

And the grip of a brother's hand, 
This way to your childhood's heart of grace 

And your home in Fairy-land. 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 153 

Dickory Dock, Fm as good as a clock, d'you 

hear my swivels chime? 
To and fro as I come and go, I keep eternal 

time. 
0, little Bo-peep, if you've lost your sheep 

and don't know where to find 'em, 
Leave 'em alone and they'll come home, and 

carry their tails behind 'em. 

And See-Saw; Margery Daw; there came the 

chorussing shout, 
As the swing-boats answered the roaring tune 

of the rollicking roundabout; 
Dickory, dickory, dickory, dock, d'you hear 

my swivels chime? 
Swing; swing; you're as good as a king if 

you keep eternal time. 

Then we saw that the tunes of the world were 
one; 



154 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

And the metre that guided the rhythmic sun 
Was at one, like the ebb and the flow of the 

sea, 
With the tunes that we learned at our mother's 

knee; 
The beat of the horse-hoofs that carried us 

down 
To see the fine Lady of Banbury Town; 
And so, by the rhymes that we knew, we could 

tell 
Without knowing the others — that all was 

well. 

And then, our brains began to spin; 
For it seemed as if that mighty din 
Were no less than the cries of the poets and 

sages 
Of all the nations in" all the ages; 
And, if they could only beat out the whole 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 155 

Of their music together, the guerdon and goal 
Of the world would be reached with one mighty 

shout, 
And the dark dread secret of Time be out; 
And nearer, nearer they seemed to climb, 
And madder and merrier rose the song, 
And the swings and the see-saws marked the 

time; 
For this was the maddest and merriest 

throng 
That ever was met on a holy-day 
To dance the dust of the world away; 
And madder and merrier, round and round 
The whirligigs whirled to the whirling sound, 
Till it seemed that the mad song burst its bars 
And mixed with the song of the whirling stars, 
The song that the rhythmic Time-Tides tell 
To seraphs in Heaven and devils in Hell; 
Ay; Heaven and Hell in accordant chime 



156 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

With the universal rhythm and rhyme 

Were nearing the secret of Space and Time; 

The song of that ultimate mystery 

Which only the mad blind men who see, 

Led by the laugh of a little child, 

Can utter; Ay, wilder and yet more wild 

It maddened, till now — full song — it was out ! 

It roared from the starry roundabout — 

A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, 

in Bethlehem, 
A child was born in Bethlehem; ah, hear my 

fairy fable; 
For I have seen the King of Kings, no longer 

thronged with angel wings, 
But croodling like a little babe, and cradled 

in a stable. 
The wise men came to greet him with their gifts 

of myrrh and frankincense, — 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 157 

Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought 

to make him mirth; 
And would you know the way to win to little 

brother Peterkin, 
My childhood's heart shall guide you through 

the glories of the earth. 

A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, 
in Bethlehem; 
The wise men came to welcome him: a star 
stood o'er the gable; 
And there they saw the Kings of Kings, no longer 
thronged with angel wings, 
But croodling like a little babe, and cradled 
in a stable. 

And creeping through the music once again 
the fairy cry 
Came freezing o'er the snowy towers to lead 
us on to Peterkin: 



158 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Once more the fairy bugles blew from lands 

beyond the sky, 
And we all groped out together, dazed and 

blind, we knew not why; 
Out through the City's farther gates we went 

to look for Peterkin; 
Out, out into the dark Unknown, and heard 

the clamour die 
Far, far away behind us as we trotted on 

to Peterkin. 

Then once more along the rare 

Forest-paths we groped our way: 
Here the glow-worm's league-long glare 

Turned the Wild Thyme night to day: 
There we passed a sort of whale 

Sixty feet in length or more, 
But we knew it was a snail 

Even when we heard it snore. 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 159 

Often through the glamorous gloom 

Almost on the top of us 
We beheld a beetle loom 

Like a hippopotamus; 
Once or twice a spotted toad 

Like a mountain wobbled by 
With a rolling moon that glowed 

Through the skin-fringe of its eye. 

Once a caterpillar bowed 

Down a leaf of Ygdrasil 
Like a sunset-coloured cloud 

Sleeping on a quiet hill: 
Once we came upon a moth 

Fast asleep with outspread wings, 
Like a mighty tissued cloth 

Woven for the feet of kings. 

There above the woods in state 



160 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

Many a temple dome that glows 
Delicately like a great 

Rainbow-coloured bubble rose: 
Though they were but flowers on earth, 

Oh, we dared not enter in; 
For in that divine re-birth 

Less than awe were more than sin! 

Yet their mystic anthems came 

Sweetly to our listening ears; 
And their burden was the same — 

"No more sorrow, no more tears! 
Whither Peterkin has gone 

You, assuredly, shall go: 
When your wanderings are done, 

All he knows you, too, shall know!" 

So we thought we'd onward roam 
Till earth's Smallest Flower appeared, 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 161 

With a less tremendous dome 

Less divinely to be feared: 
Then, perchance, if we should dare 

Timidly to enter in, 
Might some kindly doorkeeper 

Give us news of Peterkin. 

At last we saw a crimson porch 
Far away, like a dull red torch 
Burning in the purple gloom; 
And a great ocean of perfume 
Rolled round us as we drew anear, 
And then we strangely seemed to hear 
The shadow of a mighty psalm, 

A sound as if a golden sea 
Of music swung in utter calm 

Against the shores of Eternity; 
And then we saw the mighty dome 

Of some mysterious Temple tower 



162 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

On high; and knew that we had come, 
At last, to that sweet House of Grace 
Which wise men find in every place — 
The Temple of the Smallest Flower. 

And there — alas — our fairy friends 
Whispered, "Here our kingdom ends: 

You must enter in alone, 
But your souls will surely show 

Whither Peterkin is gone 
And the road that you must go: 

We, poor fairies, have no souls! 

Hark, the warning hare-bell tolls;" 
So "Good-bye, good-bye," they said, 
"Dear little seekers-for-the-dead." 
They vanished; ah, but as they went 
We heard their voices softly blent 
In some mysterious fairy song 
That seemed to make us wise and strong; 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 163 

For it was like the holy calm 
That fills the bosomed rose with balm, 
Or blessings that the twilight breathes 
Where the honeysuckle wreathes 
Between young lovers and the sky 
As on banks of flowers they lie; 
And with wings of rose and green 
Laughing fairies pass unseen, 
Singing their sweet lullaby, — 

Lulla-lulla-lullaby ! 

Lulla-lulla-lullaby ! 
Ah, good night, with lullaby ! 

Only a flower? Those carven walls, 
Those cornices and coronals, 
The splendid crimson porch, the thin 
Strange sounds of singing from within — 
Through the scented arch we stept, 
Pushed back the soft petallic door, 



164 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

And down the velvet aisles we crept; 
Was it a Flower — no more ? 

For one of the voices that we heard, 

A child's voice, clear as the voice of a bird, 

Was it not ? — nay, it could not be ! 

And a woman's voice that tenderly 

Answered him in fond refrain, 

And pierced our hearts with sweet sweet pain, 

As if dear Mary-mother hung 

Above some little child, and sung 

Between the waves of that golden sea 

The cradle-songs of Eternity; 

And, while in her deep smile he basked, 

Answered whatsoe'er he asked. 

What is there hid in the heart of a rose, 

Mother-mine f 
Ah, who knows, who knows, who knoivst 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTABD-SEED 165 

A man that died on a lonely hill 
May tell you, perhaps, but none other mill, 
Little child. 

What does it take to make a rose. 

Mother-mine f 
The God that died to make it knows 
It takes the world's eternal wars. 
It takes the moon and all the stars, 
It takes the might of heaven and hell 
And the everlasting Love as well, 

Little child. 

But there, in one great shrine apart 
Within the Temple's holiest heart, 
We came upon a blinding light, 

Suddenly, and a burning throne 
Of pinnacled glory, wild and white; 

We could not see Who reigned thereon; 



166 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

For, all at once, as a wood-bird sings, 
The aisles were full of great white wings 
Row above mystic burning row; 
And through the splendour and the glow 
We saw four angels, great and sweet, 
With outspread wings and folded feet, 
Gome gliding down from a heaven within 

The golden heart of Paradise; 

And in their hands, with laughing eyes, 
Lay little brother Peter kin. 

And all around the Temple of the Smallest of 

the Flowers 
The glory of the angels made a star for little 

Peterkin ; 
For all the Kings of Splendour and all the 

Heavenly Powers 
Were gathered there together in the fairy 

forest bowers 



PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 167 

With all their globed and radiant wings to 

make a star for Peterkin, 
The star that shone upon the East, a star that 

still is ours, 
Whene'er we hang our stockings up, a star 

of wings for Peterkin. 

Then all, in one great flash, was gone — 
A voice cried, "Hush, all's well!" 

And we stood dreaming there alone, 
In darkness. Who can tell 

The mystic quiet that we felt, 

As if the woods in worship knelt, 
Far off we heard a bell 

Tolling strange human folk to prayer 

Through fields of sunset-coloured air. 

And then a voice, "Why, here they are!" 
And — as it seemed — we woke ; 



168 PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED 

The sweet old skies, great star by star 

Upon our vision broke; 
Field over field of heavenly blue 
Rose o'er us; then a voice we knew 

Softly and gently spoke — 
"See, they are sleeping by the side 
Of that dear little one — who died." 



PART V 

THE HAPPY ENDING 

We told dear father all our tale 
That night before we went to bed, 

And at the end his face grew pale, 
And he bent over us and said 

(Was it not strange?) he, too, was there, 
A weary, weary watch to keep 
Before the gates of the City of Sleep; 

But, ere we came, he did not dare 
Even to dream of entering in, 
Or even to hope for Peterkin. 

He was the poor blind man, he said, 

And we — how low he bent his head ! 

Then he called mother near; and low 

He whispered to us — " Prompt me now; 
169 



170 THE HAPPY ENDING 

For I forget that song we heard, 

But you remember every word." 

Then memory came like a breaking morn, 

And we breathed it to him — A child was born ! 

And there he drew us to his breast 

And softly murmured all the rest. — 

The wise men came to greet him with their gifts 
of myrrh and frankincense^ — 
Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought 
to make him mirth; 
And would you know the way to win to little 
brother Peterkin, 
My childhood's heart shall guide you through 
the glories of the earth. 

Then he looked up and mother knelt 
Beside us, oh, her eyes were bright; 
Her arms were like a lovely belt 



THE HAPPY ENDING 171 

All round us as we said Good-night 
To father: he was crying now, 
But they were happy tears, somehow; 
For there we saw dear mother lay 
Her cheek against his cheek and say — 
Hush, let me kiss those tears away. 



DEDICATION 

WHAT can a wanderer bring 

To little ones loved like you? 
You have songs of your own to sing 

That are far more steadfast and true, 
Crumbs of pity for birds 

That flit o'er your sun-swept lawn, 
Songs that are dearer than all our words 

With a love that is clear as the dawn. 

What should a dreamer devise, 
In the depths of his wayward will, 

To deepen the gleam of your eyes 
Who can dance with the Sun-child still? 

Yet you glanced on his lonely way, 

172 



DEDICATION 173 

You cheered him in dream and deed, 
And his heart is o'erflowing, overflowing to-day 
With a love that — you never will need. 

What can a pilgrim teach 

To dwellers in fairy-land? 
Truth that excels all speech 

You murmur and understand! 
All he can sing you he brings; 

But — one thing more if he may. 
One thing more that the King of Kings 

Will take from the child on the way. 

Yet how can a child of the night 

Brighten the light of the sun? 
How can he add a delight 

To the dances that never are done? 
Ah, what if he struggles to turn 

Once more to the sweet old skies 



174 DEDICATION 

With praise and praise, from the fetters that 
burn, 
To the God that brightened your eyes? 

Yes; he is weak, he will fail, 

Yet, what if, in sorrows apart, 
One thing, one should avail, 

The cry of a grateful heart; 
It has wings: they return through the night 

To a sky where the light lives yet, 
To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-height 

And the path that his feet forget. 

What if he struggles and still 

Fails and struggles again? 
What if his broken will 

Whispers the struggle is vain? 
Once at least he has risen 

Because he remembered your eyes; 



DEDICATION 175 

Once they have brought to his earthly prison 
The passion of Paradise. 

Kind little eyes that I love, 

Eyes forgetful of mine, 
In a dream I am bending above 

Your sleep, and you open and shine; 
And I know as my own grow blind 

With a lonely prayer for your sake, 
He will hear — even me — little eyes that were 
kind, 

God bless you, asleep or awake. 



By ALFRED NOYES 

Poems 

With an Introduction by Hamilton Mabie 

Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 net 

"Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and 
feel sincerely, and the gift of fit and beautiful expres- 
sion in verse-form — if these may be taken as the 
equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is 
poetry. And if to the sum of these be added the 
indescribable increment of charm which comes occa- 
sionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned by 
any of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a 
fair measure of Mr. Noyes at his best. . . . Two 
considerations render Mr. Noyes interesting above 
most poets: the wonderful degree in which the per- 
sonal charm illumines what he has already written, 
and the surprises which one feels may be in store in 
his future work. His feelings have already so much 
variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is im- 
possible to tell in what direction his genius will de- 
velop. In whatever style he writes, — the mystical, 
the historical-dramatic, the impassioned description 
of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric, — he has 
the peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found 
the truest expression of himself." — Louisville Courier- 
Journal. 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York 



A History of 
English Poetry 



BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt, LL.D. 

Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford 

Cloth, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume 

VOLUME I. The Middle Ages — Influence of the Ro- 
man Empire — The Encyclopaedic Education of the 
Church — The Feudal System. 

VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation — 
Influence of the Court and the Universities. 

VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury — Decadent Influence of the Feudal Monarchy — 
Growth of the National Genius. 

VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic 
Drama — Influence of the Court and the People. 

VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the 
Eighteenth Century — Effects of the Classical Renais- 
sance — Its Zenith and Decline — The Early Romantic 
Renaissance. 



" It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great 
value and signal importance to the history of English Litera- 
ture." — Pall Mall Gazette. 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York 



RECENT POETRY 



DAWSON — The Worker and Other Poems 

By CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON 

Cloth, I2M0, $1.2 5 net; by mail, $1.35 

"The volume cannot be opened anywhere without yielding 
verse that will repay the reading." — Courier- Journal. 



FALLAW — Silverleaf and Oak 

By LANCE FALLAW 

Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 

In the title of this book " Silverleaf " stands for South Africa, 
and "Oak" for England. 



NEIDIG — The First Wardens 

Poems by WILLIAM J. NEIDIG 

A volume of unusual quality of imagination and style, 
strongly marked with the author's individuality. — Inter- Ocean. 



IRWIN — Random Rhymes and Odd Numbers 

By WALLACE IRWIN 

" Inimitable jingles, deftly apropos, droll and satiric, striking 
a humorous note that sounds of genius." — Philadelphia Press. 

Illustrated. Cloth, i2mo, $1.50 net 



RECENT POETIC DRAMAS 

By Mr. PERCY MACKAYE 

The Canterbury Pilgrims : A Comedy 

Cloth, illustrated, $1.25 net 

Fenris, the Wolf: A Tragedy 

Cloth, i2mo, $1.2$ net 

Jeanne d'Arc 

Illustrated, cloth, i2mo, $1.2$ 
Presented by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe 

Sappho and Phaon 

12 mo, cloth, $1.2$ 

The play was accepted before publication for presentation by 
E. H. Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich. 

Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS'S POETIC PLAYS 

Ulysses: A Drama 

Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net 

The Sin of David 

Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net 

Nero 

Cloth, gilt top, $1.23 net 
Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS'S COLLECTED POEMS 

Volume I : Lyrical Poems 
Volume II: Dramas in Verse: — 

" The Countess Cathleen " — " The Land of Heart's De- 
sire " — " The King's Threshold " -— " On Baile's 
Strand " and " The Shadowy Waters." 

Each volume, cloth, $1.25 net 



WM 17 1907 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: July 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Tbomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



DON 

I 



